Boston Avenue Methodist Church

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Boston Avenue Methodist Church
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Boston Avenue Methodist Church

Boston Avenue Methodist Church, located in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma and completed in 1929, is considered by many to be the finest example of ecclesiastical Art Deco architecture in the United States. The design of the $1.25 million edifice is credited to two individuals: Adah Robinson and Bruce Goff. Robinson was an art teacher at Central High School in Tulsa, and eventually was chair of the art department in the University of Tulsa. Robinson sketched the original ideas for the church. Bruce Goff, one of her students, then took the sketches and came up with the design for the church. Officially, the architecture firm credited is Rush, Endacott and Rush where Goff apprenticed (from age 12 and became a partner in 1930). There is still some debate over who was more responsible for the building. The church credits Adah with the design of this building, while Goff experts maintain that it is clearly his design.

The original building consisted of a semicircular auditorium, a massive, 225-foot tower, and an education wing. The soaring straight lines of the tower provide physical, visual, and philosophical linkage of two important church functions: shared worship and Christian education/fellowship. At the top of the tower, is a stylized sculpture that represents two hands raised upward in prayer. Louis Sullivan's plan of St. Paul's Methodist Church (1914), in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a similar, earlier, example of this type of plan.

Tower detail
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Tower detail

The Boston Avenue church also exemplifies the era's trend toward using new materials, in this case steel, which enabled the building of the church's fourteen-story "skyscraper" tower. Also important are the exterior's terra-cotta sculptures, which are located above the entry doors of the church, and executed by artist Robert Garrison, of Denver. These represent important Methodist figures Francis Asbury, William McKendrie, and an unknown Circuit Rider, as well as the abstract concepts of Spiritual Uplift, Brotherly Love, and Human Service. The most evident decorative element are the "praying hands," of which approximately one hundred sets appear on the parapet. Motifs used in window glass and in interior wood carving and mosaic include coreopsis and red-hot poker (tritoma), both native Oklahoma plants.

Hailed by architectural critics around the nation in 1929, Boston Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church continued to be counted one of the most important examples of Bruce Goff's work. In 1989 the Oklahoma chapter of the American Institute of Architects proclaimed it one of the ten most significant buildings in the state. The Boston Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 31, 1978, and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1999.

In 1993 murals were installed on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the congregation. They were designed by Chicago artist Angelo Gherardi who continued the Art Deco design to be consistent with the building's interior and exterior design.

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