BOK Tower (originally One Williams Center) was constructed in 1976 for The Williams Companies Inc. a petroleum producer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John Williams, the CEO at the time, liked the look of the recently completed World Trade Center so much that he hired the original architect to build essentially a half-scale version of WTC Tower 1.
The lobby even has marble walls and wall hanginga similar to the old World Trade Center.
Imagine looking at that ugly as grey block of a building and being like “this is peak architecture and i must pay massive sums of money to recreate this for myself”
You have to keep the timing and context in place. It was the mid-50s, the economy was roaring, and they finally invented a way to hang walls and windows off of the structure itself, the curtain wall. This gave way to the International Style, which actually has some interesting and lovely buildings, but many of them look like gross sterile cubes, and they loved that at the time. Ornate buildings like the gothic skyscrapers (we adore so much today) were suddenly seen as old and dirty and dilapidated, giant sheets of glass were “the future,” sterile and gleaming and just unlike anything else, at such a massive scale. And of course so much cheaper than masonry buildings with complex upper floors and decorations, and faster, you could throw them up very quickly.
Of course after 70 years of this we’ve got a lot different impression. If I were old-money wealthy I’d definitely have a penthouse in one of the old gothic towers, with the outdoor gardens under archways. I don’t even care what city.
Maybe they look better on the inside, I don’t know much about them (and 2 of the 3 I can’t exactly visit now). But yeah, I hate ugly buildings. I feel like architects have somewhat of a moral imperative to make sky scrapers beautiful and free of advertisements and company logos. If you wanna slap some tacky logo on your building at ground level, I’m more okay with it (or at least not radically opposed) but skylines should be beautiful.
It’s way cool on the first couple of levels! The rest is typical office space. Worked there for a brief Y2K stint in '98.
Given all the sweet Art Deco buildings downtown, they about had no choice but to make it classy.
There is only one of them so I’m going have to call this one quarter-scale.
This is actually really cool. I would check it out next time I’m out traveling. But I can’t seem to find whether they’re open to the public or do tours or not. No observatory or restaurant on the top floor either, that I can find.
Guess it’s time to start “looking at office space” in the Tulsa area :P
Also, downtown Tulsa is super cool. Sweet Art Deco everywhere (we had oil money when the Depression was raging). Wasn’t any nightlife when I was a teen, but it’s lit now!
Worked there a bit in '98! It was sweet then, can’t imagine how cool it is now.
It’s open to the public, AFAIK, always was. Everything above the 3rd floor or so is just typical office space, though I’ll bet there’s some cool one’s in there now.
Dude, hell yes, thank you for this! The place is definitely going on the list for my next road trip now. I usually run a big loop and I’ve been to Texas more than enough, so I’ve been looking for other things to check out on my way through the south western states.
Get out anywhere in downtown Tulsa, have a walk! One of the coolest metro areas I’ve seen. Sweet Art Deco buildings, Echo Point, Greenwood and the Tulsa Race Massacre site, lots to see and do. Lord only knows what they’ve added since, but downtown seems to get cooler every year.
I know the massacre site sounds depressing, but it’s American history you need to experience. It was worse than merely depressing when I was a teen. No monuments, no bullshit, just a couple of acres of mown grass, concrete basement and sidewalk and street outlines. Nothing else. “Jesus. This was a thriving community?” Most eerie experience of my life puling up there in '89.
Anyway, don’t miss Echo Point on the bridge! You can stand in an 18" concrete circle and hear your voice echo back at you. No one outside that circle hears it!
your username should be PleaseLetMeIn instead
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Devon Tower is about two hours away from One Williams Center. I promise you there is no sky bridge between them.
The ceilings must be really low.
Oklahoma 🤮
I live here so don’t hate on it so much.
I love Oklahoma. If it didn’t suck so hard, Texas might fall into the Gulf of Mexico.
Kansas blows, and Oklahoma sucks! Classic saying.
I live in Alabama (not from here) and I hate it every second of every day. I talk shit about it and it’s “people” all the time. I’ve never been to OK but I’m pretty fucking far from OK, you know what I mean?
No offense to your state but my dad’s going there to build an Rv park. He asked me to go, I said fuck no there no reason to go to Alabama. I been there it was near some college town and it was nice. Had a chance to marry a rich girl there, even that couldn’t keep me in that state.
None taken. It’s not my state and never will be. It’s a third world tier shithole full of sociopathic MAGA morons. California is my home, I’m going back as soon as I get this xray tech school out of the way so I can afford to live there on my own. A few more years of misery then I’m free.
Oh I hate Alabama too and I live here. Hii neighbor, isn’t Atlanta actually fun to visit and find stuff to do?
Atlanta is much more like actual civilization but it’s still the south unfortunately.
We’re sorry for your loss.
I was born in Tulsa at hillcrest. I fucking hate Oklahoma and left it.
St. Francis here! I still think Tulsa is Oklahoma’s crown jewel and the nicest place I’ve ever lived or visited.
Yeah Tulsa really isn’t the worst place in the world, I don’t love the state but I’m a little soft for Tulsa. There are a lot of good people in that city
Where you go? I won’t out to but to where, and even if I did could we afford to live there?
I ended up in St. Louis. Missouri as a state isn’t super great and has a lot of the same people as Oklahoma but St. Louis is like a bastion in a sea of red and a really affordable place to live. Oklahoma is probably a bit cheaper but areas of St. Louis are surprisingly cheap and it’s not the dangerous hell hole it’s portrayed as. I live in an area similar urbanwise as like broken arrow or something and it’s just quiet and chill here all the time
Huh. I’m from McAlester and did the same. Oklahoma sucks donkey dick.
There’s an even smaller scale tower, also built by the same architect, and also using the same design as the WTC. It’s in Madrid, Spain.
Kid named paraglider
No love for the third building?
Anybody got any jet fuel?
Edit: I assume the downvotes are cause jet fuel doesn’t melt steal beams.
i think the downvotes are more because it’s a tasteless overused joke, but idk.
I know
and an RC plane
If we’re talking half-scale, you’d need a private jet, or something similar.
