Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower in 360° Panorama

Frank Lloyd Wright's signature tile

The Price Tower was originally intended to be built in Manhattan sometime in the 1920s but when the Great Depression struck, the project was shelved only to be adapted for the Oklahoma prairie in the 1950s.  It is the only extant skyscraper by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The building's nickname "the tree that escaped the crowded forest" not only refers to the notion that it was plucked from the "crowded forest" of Manhattan skyscrapers and placed to stand alone on the wide open Oklahoma prairie but also to its design: the Price Tower is supported by a central "trunk" of four elevator shafts anchored in place by a deep central foundation, much like a tree is by its taproot. Nineteen cantilevered floors fan out from this central core, like the branches of a tree. The outer walls float off from the floors and are encased in patinated copper "leaves".

Price Tower first opened in the mid-20th century as a multi-use building featuring business offices, shops, and apartments with oil tycoon Harold Price, its patron and primary tenant, keeping his corporate headquarters there. Today, the building operates as the Price Tower Arts Center, a civic art complex, focusing on art, architecture and design. Features include a museum, tours of the historic tower, a hotel and restaurant.

I arrived a half-hour before closing and would have missed an opportunity to view the interior of this building if it weren't for Taylor Rasmussen, a fellow Wright enthusiast and photographer who also happens to be an employee at Price Tower. Seeing as I had come a fair piece distance to visit, Taylor graciously gave my sister and me a private tour.

Below: While most of the interior of the building is off-limits to cameras due to copyright restrictions, below is a click-through image to an indoor panorama of the upper loft of the Copper Bar located on the 15th floor that was shot with permission. It's not my best pano as there are several stitching errors that I was unable to resolve. Normally I would just omit a pano like this from viewing except it's the only one I've got and it shows the subtle triangular detailing of the red pigmented concrete floors.