A leading preservationist is in Bartlesville to develop a long-term conservation plan for Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper.
Architect Gunny Harboe and his team of engineers and consultants will have a plan late this year to keep Price Tower in tip-top shape. Harboe said unlike many Wright projects, Price Tower with its hotel and restaurant is still a living, working building.
"We think that’s really important, to find ways for places like this not to just be embalmed and be a museum where you — that has some value. But to have that as well as be able to spend the night in it like we’re doing is a real pleasure," Harboe said.
Harboe's other work on Wright buildings includes Taliesin West, Robie House, Unity Temple and Beth Sholom Synagogue. The tree-inspired Price Tower, Wright's only skyscraper, is one of 12 sites around the world picked last year for a Getty Foundation Keeping It Modern Initiative grant to preserve mid-century modern architecture.
Price Tower Arts Center Executive Director Scott Ambler said they already know some of the problems that need to be resolved.
"We’ve been working with the good people at the city over the last year because when we get really gully washer, toad strangler rains, our basement will fill with water and our electric motors for the elevators will be underwater," Ambler said.
Price Tower’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system needs an overhaul. The building's basement sometimes floods, and there are areas of water damage.
More than 22,000 people have visited the 19-story building this year. Bartlesville Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Maria Gus said tourism is Oklahoma’s third-largest industry and one important to the city.
"A lot of the money that we bring in to Bartlesville is because of so much travel coming into the state, whether they’re coming for Woolaroc, the Price Tower, cultural events. We’re so pleased that we have an icon such as the Price Tower," Gus said.
