God's Golf Course

Apologies: some of these images no longer show, and I have yet to figure out why, so rather than have them appear as blank boxes I've eliminated them, although the descriptions are still here. Ugh! Blog management...

This one is not my image, but I show it because my camera, in a most diabolical mood, told me I had used up my memory by the time I was ready to shoot big skies and landscape. And the landscape is what this day trip was all about--although, as you will see, I couldn't resist some buildings.

About noon today I headed southeast in 95 degree heat (which didn't bother me in the least) to discover the southeast and visit a place called Supher, where there are springs sprinkled throughout limestone formations. On the way south I took I-35, the main north-south corridor in Oklahoma, and I saw horse and cattle trailers that I had never seen before; I mean, these were trailers with air conditioning and lounge chairs for the animals, and classy graphics on their exteriors identifying the ranches! But the view I took in during my drive that was most impressive was the landscape. It was green everywhere, and rolling (the photo doesn't do it justice), with stands of trees liberally sprinkled about, and (like the photo) beautiful cloud formations . It was drop-dead gorgeous! It really looked like a giant golf course, hence the title of this blog (don't worry, I'm not converted to the First Baptist Church yet!).

This is a view of the "falls" at Chickasaw National Recreation Area, where there are lots of cool limestone formations and hiking trails, and on Sunday, lots of screaming kids and families with barbeques. The view below shows you an insidious vine that has beautiful oak-like leaves and rose-like thorns that gives a jungle-like feeling to this area.

This is the building that houses the Sulpher Times-Democrat, to show you that not everything in Oklahoma is Republican.



Below, the Sulpher bank, showing the tendency of Oklahoma Main Street buildings that find themselves on corners to address the center of the intersection.

Below, the bank in Tishomingo that is found on the main street that leads to the Chickasaw Nation Capitol building. Built with the same granite that came from a nearby streambed.

And the Capitol Building, with its blinding white metal roof and gables with stamped Indian motifs.

I had two more sections that I wanted to add here, but I confess, the mysteries of placing images in blogs have defeated me tonight. I'm trying to learn HTML on the fly, and it's a killer! So you'll have to wait for tomorrow to see the Cooter turtles...except as a departing view!

Intermission

The past two days I've been absorbed in meetings at the University (OU), and I haven't had time to fulfill my idea for the next blog entry, so this will have to tide us over: an image from my dissertation topic, the town of Cordes, and written entries about happenings. Perhaps this is a fitting image for the passing of Professor Folke Nyberg (of the Department of Architecture at the UW), news that I recently received. The two hybrid creatures on either side of the spandrel seem to clutch the moldings for dear life, and life is indeed dear. Many people knew Folke much better than I did, but he made a big impression on me. I remember his seminar on Nordic Classicism as a turning point in my life, because it was the first time a professor had said, "I don't know about this topic, and we will explore it together." Of course, he knew plenty about it, but he gave us the sense that we all were in the detective work as a team. What better gift to give students than this sense of confidence that their findings were as worthy as those of the professor! The other thing I knew about Folke was that he could be counted on to write an article for Column 5, the in-house publication of CAUP that I helped launch with Rebecca Barnes, and then went on to produce for several years with the students. His articles were always dense and needed editing, but they were fascinating, and filled with marvelous surprises of illustrations, like the chunks of unidentified fruits that you find in pistachio ice cream. Jennifer Dee was a genius with the editing of his articles, and my job was mostly to make them fit and use the illustrations to best advantage. I really think his long list of Column 5 articles would make a great collection for a book.

I have attended two extended faculty meetings so far, and met my three colleagues who were hired this year: Lisa Holliday, who's teaching Structures; and Daniel Butko and Stephanie Pilat who are teaching lecture classes and studios in Architecture along with me. Stephanie and I form the "History and Theory" department, although Stephanie is much more suited to take on the Theory component, and I will happily pass that baton to her (although there were theories in the Middle Ages about art and architecture!). She and I are looking forward to working together, and her web site is: http://www.reconstructdesign.com/. She and her husband (also an architect) were working in the Detroit area and there is a project on their site that compares possibilities for Detroit housing with the ina-casa projects of post-war Italy. There are many interesting people here that I am looking forward to learning more about, including Hans Butzer, who with his wife designed the Oklahoma City Memorial. I saw it recently, at night, and it was spectacularly beautiful. I loved the contrast between the clarity of the monument design and the chaos of the mementos left by friends and relatives of those killed on the chain link fence at the streetside. Here is a good website to see some views: http://www.daxx.net/MemorialNite.html.

On another topic, I had wanted to post some photos of lesser-known Bruce Goff houses, photos that I had taken while I was here in April being interviewed, but alas, they are not in this computer, so I'm going to re-take them and do a post devoted to the guy, who was one of my heroes in the late 70s. I also want to tell you about the upcoming exhibit and conference here that is a commemoration of his work, and also about how the Seattle architect Grant Gustafson is connected to him (if you don't already know). And, I'd like to post some photos of Oklahoma-the-land , which I intend to visit this weekend. Those are the coming attractions...

My Birthday Present

Is there ever such a stressful process as buying a house to live in? I think I realized that I was in love with this Walnut Avenue house the moment I saw it, but my practical side kept me from thinking about it romantically. "You can make do with anything decent," I kept telling myself. But really, it's like when I had my 1968 Volvo 1800: every time I saw that car I felt a little thrill at its beauty. That sight alone seemed to make life worth living. Come to think of it that's probably how men feel about trophy brides. I knew that every time I drove up to this house I would feel that thrill. Finally, I did make an offer, and was waiting for the seller to respond, which they did within 36 hours. Then, I had to decide if their counter-offer was OK with me. I had just had lunch at a Thai restaurant (and that's another post all of its own; the Norman restaurants, which are many and excellent), and I got a fortune cookie that said, "You shouldn't overspend at the moment. Frugality is important." So I was driving around town again, weighing the pros and cons. A banker's advice tipped me: "No one EVER sells a house in this area," he said, and so I decided that I should go the extra mile. The spring was sprung. So much for fortune cookies.


Late this afternoon I received the news that the seller accepted my offer! Yikes! There had been a similar offer, but they were excited that an architect would buy it. I can't believe my good fortune, and what a cool project I have on my hands! Tune in for the next installment...

Pay dirt?

Here's some Oklahoma dirt for you. Red clay. For rivers and lakes, just imagine the water image magnified a million times. Not all water here is red, of course, but that shown here gives you a good idea of what 80% of the homes look like, and this is cool. Because...it results in consistency. Block after block of houses share similarities of color and materials, qualtities related to the earth about them, and their unique qualities are found in their forms and the vegetation that surrounds them. I like this. It reminds me of what I see everywhere in France, where stone is a commonly used building material and one can see that it comes directly out of the surrounding earth. In the Northwest, our use of wood, requiring protection through paint, results in a real collage of colors that can sometimes be chaotic. I'm becoming an Okie snob! Now as far as the pay dirt part of it goes, I have no idea what the best color for oil-rich soil is? Do you? And by the way, I'm learning to say "ahlll" for "oil."

Housing

This house on Walnut Avenue in Norman does not have a storm shelter, but it will get one if I buy it. It was built in 1963, designed by an as yet unknown architect, and has a beautiful and simple layout, with Roman brick walls, floor to ceiling windows with 1/4" thick glass, and slate floors in the entry and dining room. It has a few problems, but the attractions outweigh them, and the location is perfect; I could walk to campus and the houses nearby are beautiful and well-maintained. On the opposite side of the street the houses back onto a creek where there is a community swimming pool, and it seems that the soil here is well-draining sand and gravel, the legacy of an old river bed. This is important, as most of the earth in Oklahoma is red, red clay (of such an amazing color that I will post a photo), and dense and difficult for plants.

Between Thursday evening and yesterday, I looked at about 30 houses, and quickly eliminated any that didn't have mature trees on the property. It was great fun looking at all these houses, and I amused the realtors by insisting on going into the storm shelters. Of the 20 houses that I actually went into, only about 5 had storm shelters, and they varied in their locations and details. All of them except one were in back yards. They all had heavy wooden or metal doors about 4' x 8' that were hinged on the long side. The best ones had a weight and pulley system that made them easy to open. I understand that the new ones have hydraulic lifts inside so that if you need to get out and your house has moved over on top of the shelter it will enable you to escape--maybe! Most of them had concrete stairs that went down into a chamber, either a concrete chamber or a metal cylinder like a culvert, and they are vented, so you see the little vents poking above the ground outside. They had varying degrees of moisture in the bottom--there is frequently a high water table here (blame that on the clay), so it's difficult to keep below ground structures dry. They all had spiders. One, the nicest, was dry and clean and the owner had plastic boxes with the emergency essentials stacked below. That was my model for what I will have.

I've learned that the winds come from the north and south and the heat comes from the west (as it does everywhere), so the ideal orientation of a house would be a diamond shape on a lot that following the US grid system. There is actually a part of Norman that shifts the grid (just as Yesler and Denny do in Seattle) so for this requirement that would be the perfect part of town to live in to protect yourself from weather. But that part of town is commercial and close to the RR tracks, so no dice. However, the Walnut Avenue house is oriented pretty well for protection, so I'm happy--or will be if I get it. If my offer on this house isn't accepted, there are a few other options that will work, but this is by far the most interesting of the lot, and in the best location. Wish me luck!

All things come around

This is the sort of thing that frightens me about living in Oklahoma, but perhaps it's just a life lived in closer proximity to the power of the gods than elsewhere, and that power could inspire as well as terrify. My four days here have not included any sights such as the one you see above, but I have been looking at the sky a lot, and I like the sense of space up there. It's not space in the sense of a void, but rather a three-dimensional space with objects that move in and out of the skin of the sky-dome as actors move in and out of the space of a theater stage. I dread my first T-storm, but, I tell myself, as many Oklahomans seem to say, "Get over it!" However, I aim to be prepared. I will install a storm shelter in my new home. Wouldn't you want to be under the ground when the gods are hurling lightning bolts at the earth?

As I flew into OK City from Minneapolis in the north, much of the land below looked flat and arid, an expanse broken only occasionally by the meander of a streambed. A far cry from the verdant topography of the Northwest! Happily as we neared OK city, there was more green than brown on the canvas, and indeed, Norman is filled with trees, at least in the central part of town. I spent quite a bit of time in the desert when I was young, and arid land holds an attraction for me, but not as an environment to live in. Here, I want some mediation between my fragile human body and those divine celestial powers.