Boston Avenue Methodist Church
Encyclopedia
The Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, located in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma
and completed in 1929, is considered to be one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical Art Deco
architecture in the United States
, and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places
. Built by a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
, it was designated a National Historic Landmark
in 1999.
1.25 million edifice is credited to two individuals: Adah Robinson and Bruce Goff
. Robinson was an art teacher at Central High School
in Tulsa, and eventually was chair of the art department in the University of Tulsa
. Robinson sketched the original ideas for the church. Bruce Goff, formerly one of her high school students, and the architect in 1924-1926 of her home and studio, then took the sketches and came up with the design for the church. Officially, the architecture firm credited is Rush, Endacott and Rush where Goff apprenticed (from age 12 and became a partner in 1930). There is still some debate over who was more responsible for the building. The church credits Adah Robinson with the design of this building, while Goff experts maintain that it is clearly his design. The definitive book on the subject, Tulsa Art Deco [see References, below] says of that issue that "it is not the purpose of this book to offer a resolution to that controversy."
The original building consisted of a semicircular auditorium, a soaring 225-foot (68.5 m) tower, and a wing containing class rooms. The soaring straight lines of the tower provide physical, visual, and philosophical linkage to the Gothic Cathedrals of past ages as well as allowing the designers to indulge in the Art Deco celebration of the vertical.
At the top of the tower, as well as on many of the other high points and used much in the same manner that churches in the Middle Ages utilized crockets and finials, is a stylized sculpture that represents two hands raised upward in prayer. This motif of praying hands is one that is echoed throughout the building and is one of the areas of design that can be traced back to the early drawings by Robinson.
While the building is in many ways unique, the idea of the large, semi-circular main auditorium has an earlier precursor in another Methodist church, Louis Sullivan
's St. Paul's Methodist Church, designed in 1910 and built, somewhat modified, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
in 1914.
Like many Art Deco buildings the Boston Avenue Church reveled in the use of various building materials, so metal, glass, terra cotta, Indiana limestone and Minnesota granite can all be found. The exterior is decorated with numerous terra cotta sculptures by the Denver sculptor, Robert Garrison
, who had been a student of Adah Robinson's in Oklahoma City
. These sculptures include several groups of people at prayer representing Spiritual life, Religious Education and Worship. In these groups again can be found the two hands together motif.
Above the south entrance are the equestrian Circuit Riders, statues of the early Methodists engaged in spreading the Good Word. Two of the three riders represent historic individuals, Bishop Francis Asbury
, the first American Methodist bishop and Bishop William McKendrie, while the third figure, the one in the center, is symbolic of all the other men of God who did His bidding from horseback. The face on this rider was created by Garrison using the church minister's father-in-law, the Rev. T.L. Darnell, of as his model. Rev. Darnell had in fact been a circuit rider for half a century. Over the north entrance of the building there can be found idealized statues of John Wesley
his brother Charles Wesley
and Susanna Wesley
, their mother. Other places on the exterior reveal classic art deco styles organic plant designs, which. like the stained glass windows were based on designs drawn from Oklahoma flora, most notably the tritomas and coreopsis flowers.
The building was not long in making an impression on the architectural world. Influential art critic of the day, Sheldon Chaney, allows it 5 pictures in his book [see References. below] and praises it saying that, "its detail is daringly new, its ornamental idioms fresh and vital, its masses fairly well sculpted and perfectly expressive of the plan," and adding, "But why for the Methodists?"
In 1978 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
and was designated as a National Historic Landmark
in 1999.
In 1993, murals were installed on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the congregation. They were designed by Chicago artist Angelo Gherardi who continued the Art Deco design to be consistent with the building's interior and exterior design.
The construction of a Columbarium
inside the building was completed in 2000. Designed by Tulsa architect Roger Coffey, it allowed for the cremains of church members and their immediate family members to be interred there. The columbarium contains a 6 feet (1.8 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) cut glass window created by Richard Bohm of the Tulsa Stained Glass company.
A stone from the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church is one of the stones embedded in the walls of the Chicago Tribune Building, along with over 100 others picked from historic buildings and famous sites from around the world.
The Boston Avenue Church contains a 105 rank Möller
pipe organ
, dedicated in 1962 at 72 playable ranks of pipes and expanded in 1986. The organ was further modified in 1995 by Daniel Angerstein. In 1999 a new Trompette-en-chamade
was added.
A complete stoplist for the organ can be found at The Organ Page for the Boston Avenue Church.
The church was built by W. S. Bellows Construction Corporation.
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
and completed in 1929, is considered to be one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
architecture in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. Built by a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South
Methodist Episcopal Church, South
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, or Methodist Episcopal Church South, was the so-called "Southern Methodist Church" resulting from the split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church which had been brewing over several years until it came out into the open at a conference...
, it was designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1999.
History
The design of the US$United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
1.25 million edifice is credited to two individuals: Adah Robinson and Bruce Goff
Bruce Goff
Bruce Alonzo Goff was an American architect distinguished by his organic, eclectic, and often flamboyant designs for houses and other buildings in Oklahoma and elsewhere.-Early years:...
. Robinson was an art teacher at Central High School
Central High School (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Central High School is the oldest high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was founded in 1906 as Tulsa High School, and located in downtown Tulsa until 1976. The school now has a campus in northwest Tulsa. Tulsa Central is part of the Tulsa Public Schools, Oklahoma's largest school district, and is a...
in Tulsa, and eventually was chair of the art department in the University of Tulsa
University of Tulsa
The University of Tulsa is a private university awarding bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. It is currently ranked 75th among doctoral degree granting universities in the nation by US News and World Report and is listed as one of the "Best 366 Colleges" by...
. Robinson sketched the original ideas for the church. Bruce Goff, formerly one of her high school students, and the architect in 1924-1926 of her home and studio, then took the sketches and came up with the design for the church. Officially, the architecture firm credited is Rush, Endacott and Rush where Goff apprenticed (from age 12 and became a partner in 1930). There is still some debate over who was more responsible for the building. The church credits Adah Robinson with the design of this building, while Goff experts maintain that it is clearly his design. The definitive book on the subject, Tulsa Art Deco [see References, below] says of that issue that "it is not the purpose of this book to offer a resolution to that controversy."
The original building consisted of a semicircular auditorium, a soaring 225-foot (68.5 m) tower, and a wing containing class rooms. The soaring straight lines of the tower provide physical, visual, and philosophical linkage to the Gothic Cathedrals of past ages as well as allowing the designers to indulge in the Art Deco celebration of the vertical.
While the building is in many ways unique, the idea of the large, semi-circular main auditorium has an earlier precursor in another Methodist church, Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
's St. Paul's Methodist Church, designed in 1910 and built, somewhat modified, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
in 1914.
Like many Art Deco buildings the Boston Avenue Church reveled in the use of various building materials, so metal, glass, terra cotta, Indiana limestone and Minnesota granite can all be found. The exterior is decorated with numerous terra cotta sculptures by the Denver sculptor, Robert Garrison
Robert Garrison
Robert Garrison was an American sculptor . He was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa.Garrison studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and with Gutzon Borglum...
, who had been a student of Adah Robinson's in Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City is the capital and the largest city in the state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, the city ranks 31st among United States cities in population. The city's population, from the 2010 census, was 579,999, with a metro-area population of 1,252,987 . In 2010, the Oklahoma...
. These sculptures include several groups of people at prayer representing Spiritual life, Religious Education and Worship. In these groups again can be found the two hands together motif.
Above the south entrance are the equestrian Circuit Riders, statues of the early Methodists engaged in spreading the Good Word. Two of the three riders represent historic individuals, Bishop Francis Asbury
Francis Asbury
Bishop Francis Asbury was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now The United Methodist Church in the United States...
, the first American Methodist bishop and Bishop William McKendrie, while the third figure, the one in the center, is symbolic of all the other men of God who did His bidding from horseback. The face on this rider was created by Garrison using the church minister's father-in-law, the Rev. T.L. Darnell, of as his model. Rev. Darnell had in fact been a circuit rider for half a century. Over the north entrance of the building there can be found idealized statues of John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
his brother Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley
Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...
and Susanna Wesley
Susanna Wesley
Susanna Wesley , born Susanna Annesley, was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley and Mary White, and the mother of John and Charles Wesley....
, their mother. Other places on the exterior reveal classic art deco styles organic plant designs, which. like the stained glass windows were based on designs drawn from Oklahoma flora, most notably the tritomas and coreopsis flowers.
The building was not long in making an impression on the architectural world. Influential art critic of the day, Sheldon Chaney, allows it 5 pictures in his book [see References. below] and praises it saying that, "its detail is daringly new, its ornamental idioms fresh and vital, its masses fairly well sculpted and perfectly expressive of the plan," and adding, "But why for the Methodists?"
In 1978 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
and was designated as a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1999.
In 1993, murals were installed on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the congregation. They were designed by Chicago artist Angelo Gherardi who continued the Art Deco design to be consistent with the building's interior and exterior design.
The construction of a Columbarium
Columbarium
A columbarium is a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns . The term comes from the Latin columba and originally referred to compartmentalized housing for doves and pigeons .The Columbarium of Pomponius Hylas is a particularly fine ancient Roman example, rich in...
inside the building was completed in 2000. Designed by Tulsa architect Roger Coffey, it allowed for the cremains of church members and their immediate family members to be interred there. The columbarium contains a 6 feet (1.8 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) cut glass window created by Richard Bohm of the Tulsa Stained Glass company.
A stone from the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church is one of the stones embedded in the walls of the Chicago Tribune Building, along with over 100 others picked from historic buildings and famous sites from around the world.
The Boston Avenue Church contains a 105 rank Möller
M. P. Moller
Mathias Peter Møller was a prolific Danish organ builder. He was a native of the Danish island of Bornholm. He founded the M.P. Moller Pipe Organ Company in Greencastle, Pennsylvania in 1875...
pipe organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
, dedicated in 1962 at 72 playable ranks of pipes and expanded in 1986. The organ was further modified in 1995 by Daniel Angerstein. In 1999 a new Trompette-en-chamade
En chamade
En chamade refers to powerfully-voiced reed stops in a pipe organ that have been mounted horizontally, rather than vertically, in the front of the organ case, projecting out into the church or concert hall...
was added.
A complete stoplist for the organ can be found at The Organ Page for the Boston Avenue Church.
The church was built by W. S. Bellows Construction Corporation.