Riverside Studio
1381 South Riverside Drive
Built: 1929
GPS
N 36 08.486
W 95 59.926
This building, designed by Architect Bruce Goff, is a two-story
stucco building set on a sloping site facing the Arkansas River. The design of
the building reflects an influence of both Art Deco and the International Style
but with a more personalized interpretation. The underlying inspiration for the
design is music, evoking a concept that architecture might be interpreted as
“frozen music.” This theme is visualized in the treatment of the windows on the
façade of the building.
The building was designed for Mrs. Patti Adams Shriner, a music teacher who
wanted to combine a music studio for teaching piano lessons with her living
quarters. The rhythm of windows and inset tile forming diagonal patterns on the
walls of the entrance hall drew their inspiration from musical scales. The round
window on the front of the building derived its decorative pattern from musical
scores that Goff composed while he was working on the design. Even the fountain
designed by Alphonso Iannelli used abstract marble sculpture with pipes that
dripped water over the sculpture onto chromimium cups. These were of varying
size to create music-like tones as the water splashed into the pool below. The
rigid cubism is reinforced by an enormous round window and other geometric
shapes, creating a modernity of form. Today it is a theater hosting the dramatic
performance of an old fashioned melodrama, "The Drunkard."
the short description was prepared by the Tulsa Preservation Commission
