The Addition of the Celebrated Young Architect Bruce Goff to the University of Oklahoma Faculty Was Considered Qu
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An Architectural legacy Lingers EDITOR'S NOTE: The addition of the celebrated pursue a private practice in Bartles- University of Kentucky . Sixteen of young architect Bruce Goff to the ville and Kansas City, then worked in the 22 are OU alumni: MacDonald; University of Oklahoma faculty was Japan and several European and Henderson; Californians Valentino considered quite an academic coup in South American countries . To the dis- Agnoli of Stinson Beach, Violeta Au- 1947. A disciple of Frank Lloyd tress of many of his former students, tumn and John Davis of Sausalito, Wright and Louis Sullivan, Goff the Goff influence has faded at the George K. Muennig of Big Sur, played a major role in the so-called School of Architecture over the years Robert K. Overstreet of San Francisco ,'modern" architectural revolution in as the broader-based College of En- and William R. Stover of San Rafael; America . Locally, he was a classroom vironmental Design emerged at OU Colorodans Robert A. Bowlby and W. celebrity, using his creative and (Page 11) . But his legacy lingers in Arley Rinehart of Denver and Varouj teaching genius to attract gifted stu- the work of the architects he trained Z. Hairabedian of Aspen; Robert L. dents to OU and his promotional who are just now coming into their Faust of Auburn, Alabama; James A. abilities to make certain everyone own as a definable group (Page 9). Gresham ofTucson, Arizona; William knew they were there . No ivory tower One of this group, Donald Mac- Murphy ofNew York City, New York; for Goff, he believed in going public. Donald of San Francisco, paid tribute Rex Slack of Manhattan, Kansas; and He used the location of his School of to the Oklahoma-born, uniquely Takenobu Mohri of Tokyo, Japan . Architecture in the Oklahoma American architectural tradition as Many of these same architects, in- Memorial Stadium to full advantage. guest editor of the special issue cluding OU's Henderson, also were Football fans attempting to avoid (November 1981) of A+U, Architec- featured in a similar article in the traffic snarls by arriving early or ture and Urbanism, an international June 1982 issue of the Italian leaving late were encouraged by Goff professional magazine published in magazine, L'Architettura . During the to fill the time with a visit to exhibi- Japan. Portions of that issue are re- past year exhibitions of their work, tions of student and faculty designs . printed on the following pages of emphasizing Goffs influence, have No Sunday afternoon drive around Sooner Magazine, notably Bruce been held at Kansas State and Au- Norman was complete without a slow Goffs memories of his years at OU, burn universities . swing down Timberdell Road with its written at MacDonald's request, In the midst of the heightened in- cul de sacs lined with avant-garde which appear on Page 5. terest in his contributions to architec- houses by Goff, his students and col- Featured in A+U were works of 22 ture, Bruce Goff returned to the OU leagues. Meanwhile, just east of the Goff-influenced architects, including campus as a distinguished visiting city, a dollar would buy the visitor a University of Oklahoma Professor professor for the 1981-82 academic guided tour of Goffs controversial Arn Henderson and former OU ar- year, a visit cut short by the illness Bavinger House, for many years a chitecture faculty member Herb which eventually claimed his life on staple of OU's Mom's Day . Greene, who is living in Berkeley, August 4, 1982, in Tyler, Texas, his Goff left OU in December 1955 to California, while on leave from the home for the last 12 years . He was 78. 4 SOONER MAGAZINE "The idea that anyone might think he had something to develop as an individual was `heresy' and `dangerous' and forbidden." he School of Architecture at the and Endacott knew it and advised me styles these schools admired were, University of Oklahoma in to continue in the firm. My parents originally, of so shallow a nature. Norman invited me to join the thought I was a fool if I refused the They were not. They were modern in Tfaculty as professor of architecture in gift, so I needed more "authority ." their own time, healthy and vital. But 1947. 1 had just completed my three- The only two architects I knew I these academic schools seemed totally year enlistment in the U.S.N. "Sea- could trust to see it my way were ignorant or unaware of architectures bees" (World War II) and had decided Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd of the past besides those they so to remain in the San Francisco area Wright, so I wrote to them, explain- blindly followed. To wit: Egypt, India, to continue my own architectural ing my predicament and asking them China, Japan, Central America, and practice . Many clients were asking what they thought I should do. Sulli- wonderful ethnic constructions by me to work with them, but it was al- van answered promptly : "I have had non-architect builders all over the most impossible to secure labor and precisely that same education you world. I believe we should know a materials . Therefore, the invitation speak of, in Boston and in Paris, and great deal about all of them and learn from Oklahoma University was most have spent my entire lifetime trying what we can from all of them, but propitious. to live it down; I can't see what any- forget it all when we need to create Although I had had no formal one would want with it!" Wright re- architecture of'our own. Do not try to academic education since high school, plied: "If you want to lose Bruce Goff, remember! I had previously taught design in the go to school." This gave me the I informed the University that I Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. As needed "authority" and left me free to had no academic degrees for such a head of the design department (for continue with my own education. position on the faculty. Then Libbey-Owens-Ford), in Chicago and Most architectural schools of that George Cross, president of the Uni- Toledo, my work continued to be of a time were either directly or indirectly versity of Oklahoma, said, "We are teaching nature, as was my work (teaching) according to Beaux Arts after men with ideas, not just de- with apprentices in my own architec- methods and programs, imitative of grees ." I joined the faculty in Feb- tural office, first in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the historic past, and preached that ruary 1947. and then in Chicago. art died with the Greeks. Other There was no "head" of the School The question arises, "why did I not schools thought art died with the Ro- of Architecture then, nor was it have a formal academic education in mans, the Romanesque, the Renais- accredited. The budget was one of the architecture?" I was apprenticed at sance, the Gothic, the Baroque, etc., lowest of any school of architecture in the age of 12 to the firm of Rush, En- etc . Anyway, they all seem to agree the U.S.A . "Basic Design" was a ser- dacott & Rush, architects in Tulsa, that art had died and that the proper, vice course offered by the Art School. Oklahoma, in 1916. From 1922 to gentleman-architect should follow The School of Architecture was a part 1929 I spent full time in their office, one or mix several of these historical of the College of Engineering, and doing most of their planning and de- styles with "taste" and "respect" into "Structural Design" was furnished by sign . In 1929 I passed the license ex- a watered-down kind of eclecticism that college. "Architectural History" amination and became a registered quite apart from our own times. followed Sir Bannister Fletcher's architect and partner in the firm The idea that anyone might think "bible" and Space, Time and Every- Rush, Endacott & Goff and, upon Mr. he had something within himself to thing was to show up later. There Rush's retirement, a partner in En- develop, as an individual, was was, however, some mention of Sulli- dacott & Goff. "heresy" and "dangerous" and forbid- van and Wright. A wealthy Tulsan and his wife, for den. These schools regarded struc- Design assignments were attempt- whom I had done some work, kindly ture, mechanical engineering and ing to be up-to-date including such offered to finance an architectural new unusual materials as "necessary problems as shopping centers, ticket education for me by proposing I evils" which had to be covered over booths at a county fair, etc . Some of should go to M.I.T . and then be with architectural "facials" and the teachers would give their classes "finished off" by attending the Ecole "makeups ." The word "facade" never a clue as to what they wanted by re- des Beaux Arts in Paris . I knew such got much below the surface. ferring their students to pages so and an education was not for me; Rush I do not mean to imply that the so in one of the current architectural WINTER 1983 5 e . .r_ "We had many transfer students of the best from other schools but they gained none of ours ." O.U. He was structural engineer for several of my own buildings which I did while at OU, such as the Ledbetter-Taylor house in Norman, the Bavinger house near Norman, Hopewell Church in the oil field near Edmond, Oklahoma, the Julius Cox House at Boise City, Oklahoma, and the Ford house in Aurora, Illi- nois.