Bruce Goff
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (April 2009) |
Bruce Alonzo Goff | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 8, 1904 |
| Died | September 4, 1982 (aged 78) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Buildings | Bavinger House Ruth VanSickle Ford House |
Bruce Alonzo Goff (June 8, 1904 – August 4, 1982) was an American architect.
Early years
Born in Alton, Kansas, Goff was a child prodigy who apprenticed at the age of twelve to Rush, Endacott and Rush of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Goff became a partner with the firm in 1930. He is credited, along with his high-school art teacher Adah Robinson, with the design of Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in the United States.
Teaching
After stints in Chicago and Berkeley, Goff accepted a teaching position with the School of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma in 1942. By 1943, despite a lack of credentials, he was chairman of the school. This was his most productive period. In his private practice, Goff built an impressive number of residences in the American Midwest, developing his singular style of organic architecture that was client- and site-specific.
Work
Goff's accumulated design portfolio of 500 projects (about one quarter of them built) demonstrates a restless, sped-up evolution through conventional styles and forms at a young age, through the Prairie style of his heroes and correspondents Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Sullivan, then into original design. Finding inspiration in sources as varied as Antoni Gaudi, Balinese music, Claude Debussy, Japanese ukiyo-e prints, and seashells, Goff's mature work had no precedent and he has few heirs other than his former assistant, New Mexico architect Bart Prince and Herb M. Greene. His contemporaries primarily followed tight functionalistic floorplans with flat roofs and no ornament. Goff's idiosyncratic floorplans, attention to spatial effect, and use of recycled and/or unconventional materials such as gilded zebrawood, cellophane strips, cake pans, glass cullet, Quonset Hut ribs, ashtrays, and white turkey feathers, challenge conventional distinctions between order and disorder.
Chronological Building List:
- 1926: Boston Avenue Methodist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma
- 1938: Turzak House, Chicago, Illinois
- 1939: Cole House, Glenview, Illinois
- 1940: Colmorgan House, Glenview, Illinois
- 1940: Unseth House, Park Ridge, Illinois
- 1941: Bartman House (also known as Triaero), Fern Creek,Kentucky
- 1947: Ruth VanSickle Ford House, Aurora, Illinois
- 1947: Ledbetter House, Norman, Oklahoma
- 1948: Hopewell Baptist Church, Edmond, Oklahoma
- 1950: Bavinger House, Norman, Oklahoma
- 1952: Corsaw House, Norman, Oklahoma
- 1955: Frank House, Sapulpa, Oklahoma
- 1956: Joe D. Price House and Studio (also known as Shin'enKan), Bartlesville, Oklahoma destroyed by arson in 1996
- 1957: Comer House, Dewey, Oklahoma
- 1957: Motsenbocker House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
- 1958: Durst House, Houston, Texas
- 1958: Freeman House, Joplin, Missouri
- 1958: Gutman House, Gulfport, Mississippi (destroyed by fire)
- 1958: Jones House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
- 1959: Collins House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
- 1960: Grydor House, Ocean Springs, Mississippi
- 1961: Fitchette House, Bartlesville, Oklahoma
- 1961: Adams House, Vinita, Oklahoma
- 1963: Pollack House, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- 1965: Duncan House, Cobden, Illinois
- 1965: Hyde House, Prairie Village, Kansas
- 1965: Nichol House, Kansas City, Missouri
- 1965: Searing House, Prairie Village, Kansas
- 1966: Jacquart House, Sublette, Kansas
- 1968: Mitchell House, Dodge City, Kansas
- 1970: Glen Harder House, Mountain Lake, Minnesota (destroyed by fire)
- 1974: Barby House, Tucson, Arizona
- 1979: Struckus House, Woodland Hills, California
- 1980: Jacob Harder House, Mountain Lake, Minnesota
- Pavilion for Japanese Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California.
Scandals and contributions
Viewed with suspicion and contempt by many in the architectural community,[citation needed] Goff was caught up in a sexual scandal involving one of his students in 1955 and lost his university position, and much of his reputation. It is still speculated today that Goff lost his position at the conservative University of Oklahoma because of his homosexuality.[citation needed] Nevertheless, Goff maintained a devoted group of students and clients and continued to design through the late 1970s.
Today, Goff's contributions to the history of 20th-century architecture are widely praised. His extant archive—including architectural drawings, paintings, musical compositions, photographs, project files, and personal and professional papers—is held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The University of Oklahoma now sponsors the Bruce Goff Professorship of Creative Architecture in his honor.
Death
Goff died in Tyler, Smith County, TX on August 4, 1982 (TX Death Records). His cremated remains are interred in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, with a marker designed by Grant Gustafson (one of Goff's students) that incorporates a glass cullet fragment salvaged from the ruins of the Joe D. Price House and Studio.
External links
- Friends of Kebyar, an international network of people interested in original and innovative architecture and Bruce Goff's legacy, founded by former colleagues and students of Goff.
- ADAO - International Web Portal of Organic Architecture
- Bruce Goff Castle BandB The Duncan House, built in 1968, now operated as a Bed and Breakfast.
- "Goff in the Desert" documentary by Heinz Emigholz.
- Cimarron Heritage Center, formerly the Cox House, was designed by Goff.
- Short biography on Graceland Cemetery's website.
- Bruce Goff Archive - includes biography and digitized images
- [1]www.wsiu.org under
the PBS InFocus Show aired in 2008-2009 - archived as downloadable 29 minute showing of the Bruce Goff Duncan Dwelling serving as Bed and Breakfast experience.
- [2]The Bavinger House is a non-profit corporation founded with the purpose of restoring the house built by master artist Eugene Bavinger and master architect, Bruce Goff. This will allow the house to be open to the public and colleges for education and the enjoyment of all. Eugene and Nancy Bavinger’s last wishes were for the house to be shown. They built a house that would satisfy their desire of nontraditional spaces encompassing nature in form and function.