The Bavinger House, Norman, OK
This adventure was a big bust. What a huge disappointment! And I don't think the kids even cared. When we left the Sam Noble museum in Norman, I asked SuperD to drive us an extra 15 minutes so that we could see the Bavinger House, designed by Bruce Goff and built by Eugene Bavinger in 1955.
The house is built on a spiral around an iron pipe.
It is supported by cables and is counterbalanced by a wooden bridge to one side.
The main walls of the house are made of rock and are adorned by large green glass rocks which catch and reflect the sun's light.
The main room on the ground floor has a fish pond running through it.
Spare "rooms" are carpeted discs which hang suspended from cables at different levels.
I thought the house was open and available for tours, but when we arrived, it was covered with a tarp and reconstruction was underway. The owner of the home is trying to restore it to its original glory so that the public can see it as his parents had wished. I didn't even get close enough to take a good picture of the tarp. So the pictures you see were taken by people who have actually seen this unusual work of architecture.
A:
Ok, so we didn't get to see the house because a tarp was covering it, but when we got home I saw a video about the house, and that house is amazing! The shape of the house is like nothing I've ever seen before! The inside of the house was breathtaking. It is beautiful and weird all at the same time! The bedrooms of the house are yellow circles that are held up by wires, and connected by stairs and bridges! The bedrooms have no walls, but they have curtains that you can pull all the way around so that you can have your privacy. That house is something that everyone has to see. It is an architectural wonder.
C:
The house was really awesome, even though we didn't really get to see it. They were redoing the house. It looked like a total wreck. I watched a video, and inside was a really cool place. The owner said there is a fish pond in the house. There were red fish and lots of other colors. I felt like I wanted to move into the house. It was so cool!
Bummer! I'm a huge Bruce Goff fan and I can't wait to see this house once they get it back in tour-condition. Unfortunately this is happing to several of his buildings, as well as many of Frank Lloyd Wright's more unusual homes from his later years, that don't get the same sort of respect and publicity as the prairie school houses did. Still... I love your blog and reading about all of your summer adventures!
ReplyDeleteIm sorry to inform you that the Bavinger House was destroyed by the owners son, Robert Bavinger in mid- June 2011. he thought the university was trying to take it away from him and had a wrecking crew take the house apart and removed to the local dump. a great loss to american architectural history
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