Herb Greene’s Prairie House

The American School of Architecture

In In 1957 a young archi­tect named Herb Greene returned to his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, to teach. Working along­side his for­mer pro­fes­sor (mod­ernist Bruce Goff) and oth­ers, he helped develop the American School of archi­tec­ture. Described as A new school, prob­a­bly the only indige­nous one in the United States by cofounder Donald MacDonald, the cur­ricu­lum eschewed the ped­a­gogy of the French Beaux Arts and Bauhaus schools, instead approach­ing archi­tec­ture and its ped­a­gogy in an orig­i­nal and authen­ti­cally American fash­ion by empa­siz­ing indi­vid­ual cre­ativ­ity, organic forms, and experimentation. [Sidenote: Pilat, Stephanie, “The American School of Architecture: Building on the Plains,” stephaniepi​lat​.oucre​ate​.com (12 February 2017).]

The Prairie Chicken

While teach­ing at the uni­ver­sity, Greene pur­chased a small plot of land east of Norman and designed and built a home for his young fam­ily. The home, now known as The Prairie House, [Sidenote: When Look and Life mag­a­zines fea­tured the home in arti­cles in 1962 they dubbed it the Prairie Chicken House. Perhaps the most famous pho­tographs of the house were taken by Julius Shulman. Best known for his Case Study pho­tographs, Shulman fre­quently trav­eled to Oklahoma to doc­u­ment its mid­cen­tury archi­tec­ture.] was com­pleted in 1961.

Situated on two acres with no other homes in view, the house fea­tured nat­ural mate­ri­als, pas­sive design, nat­ural light­ing and ven­ti­la­tion, energy effi­ciency, and care­ful site placement. [Sidenote: Laylin, Tafline, “Herb Greene’s Crazy 1960s Prairie Chicken House Was a Green Design Before Its Time,” inhabit​.com (23 August 2011).] The rough cedar shin­gles cov­er­ing the the home inside and out give it the look of a shaggy, liv­ing thing. Greene says he wanted the house to look as though it were strug­gling to climb from the flat land­scape, Like it’s com­ing into the ground and in some views try­ing to free itself from the ground. [Sidenote: Culver, Galen, “The Prairie House Architect Comes Home to See His Famous Structure for the First Time in More than 50 Years,” KFOR.com (17 April 2017).]

Greene and his fam­ily lived in the house for only two years. The University of Kentucky offered him a pro­fes­sor­ship, and for the next half cen­tury the house was home to local busi­ness­woman Janie Wilson, who lived in it until her death in 2016. Business owner Brent Swift acquired the prop­erty soon after.

New Life

The house has since under­gone exten­sive repairs and ren­o­va­tions. When the bureau vis­ited the prop­erty in 2017, Brent Swift Architecture and Butzer Architects and Urbanism were involved in the restora­tion, with Greene infor­mally con­sult­ing. [Sidenote: Rostochil, Lynne, “Herb Greene Visits Norman and His Prairie House,” OKC MOD (3 August 2017).] Since then Austin Hacker and Bryan Bloom of design firm OXBloom have acquired the prop­erty from Swift and are con­tin­u­ing ren­o­va­tions. [Sidenote: Azzarello, Nina, “Step inside the 1960s ‘Prairie House’ in Oklahoma Collaged in Swirling Cedar Shingles,” design­boom (23 September 2018).] In part­ner­ship with the Tower Theatre they have insti­tuted a con­cert series hosted in the his­toric build­ing.

History in Peril

Oklahoma is a trea­sure-trove of mid­cen­tury mod­ern archi­tec­ture, but in recent years many of the state’s iconic struc­tures have met the wreck­ing ball. Stage Center, Union Bus Station, Bavinger House, and Founders Bank are all gone. Also endan­gered but not yet gone are the Citizens Bank Gold Dome and the Central National Motor Bank, while Oklahoma City’s First Christian Church (a.k.a. “The Egg”) just nar­rowly avoided demo­li­tion when an area church agreed to buy the prop­erty ear­lier this week. The Okie Mod Squad have com­piled a list of endan­gered struc­tures, past and present, as well as links to preser­va­tion resources.