The Plan to Save Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Skyscraper Isn’t Going as Planned
The New York Times
Less than two years ago, the building was thought to have been rescued from financial woes. Now the new owners have it on the auction block and some Wright-designed furnishings have already been sold.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s only realized skyscraper is just 19 stories, but even 70 years after it was built, Price Tower sits higher than most buildings in Bartlesville, Okla., and the view from the top still stretches to the horizon where the rolling prairie starts to take shape.
The tower is a landmark in Bartlesville, and a rarity in the architect’s portfolio. Designed by Wright to resemble a tree, with green, oxidized copper paneling, it’s featured on a mural nearby that depicts bison, an oil well and other anchors of the city’s heritage.
But the tower is now in trouble.
Once a buzzy hub of business life, and briefly occupied by Phillips Petroleum, the oil company that has long called Bartlesville home, it has struggled for many years to find an anchor tenant. It was reinvented as a nonprofit arts center in 2001 and soon added a boutique hotel and restaurant, but its major benefactor, the former Phillips chief executive C.J. Silas, also known as Pete, died a decade ago.
Facing a financial crisis, the nonprofit organization turned last year to a married pair of cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, Cynthia and Anthem Blanchard, who presented a bold plan to revive Wright’s masterwork. They proposed that a group led by Ms. Blanchard would buy the building, renovate it and make it the launchpad for a rethinking of Bartlesville as “Silicon Ranch,” a new hub for technology start-ups drawn by Oklahoma’s lower cost of living.
Since breaking out in “Atlanta,” the actor has become a dependable Hollywood side man. In “Dope Thief,” a new crime drama, he will finally take the lead.
The best-selling bard of female anxiety rakes over some middle school memories while visiting the city where she grew up.
From a low-slung building in Montana, employees process sex abuse complaints against the music mogul that have been drawn to them through advertising and a viral hotline.
A production partly aimed at students that highlights Tampa’s history in the civil rights movement lands at a time when the state is changing what schools teach about race and history.
Minnesota’s high school hockey tournament is a fashion show of mullets, perms and bleach. With his “All Hockey Hair Team,” John King chronicles the lettuce and flow.
Enter the era of the power curve with Alaïa, Schiaparelli and Chloé.
For all the repellent narcissism of its members, the family of HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones” has been a deeply humanizing example of evangelical Christian faith.
The latest Tom Ford collection makes a strong case for them.
Anne Imhof’s three-hour spectacle of moody youth at the Armory is sweet sorrow, full of moping and muttering. Still, almost despite itself, it points to true art.
In Bong Joon Ho’s latest dystopian romp, Robert Pattinson plays a hapless underdog whose work aboard a spaceship requires him to die, over and over.
But is this really a “Barbie” moment?
Chad Kassem is on a mission — saving listeners “from bad sound” — at the rural factory where he pores over LPs from some of music’s most important artists.
Charisma, positivity and warmth are traits that fans attribute to the color, which has been on the ascent.