With the support of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Goff Fest was created from the vision of artist Karl Jones and filmmaker Britni Harris who felt Goff’s work was underappreciated and hoped “to share an interest in Bruce Goff’s story with a wider regional and national audience.”
EVENT SCHEDULE
BRUCE GOFF TRIVIA
TUESDAY, JUNE 4 | 7PM - 9PM
Heirloom Rustic Ales
2113 E. Admiral Blvd., Tulsa, OK
Heirloom Rustic Ales, Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, and Goff Fest present a night of Tulsa and Bruce Goff-inspired architectural trivia. Celebrate Heirloom Rustic Ale’s Bruce Goff Summer Ale with four rounds of architectural trivia in the heart of Tulsa’s Kendall-Whittier neighborhood. Expect questions about Bruce Goff’s Tulsa origins, organic architecture, Goff’s favorite music, and more as we look forward to another exciting weekend celebrating Tulsa’s iconic 20th-century architect.
GOFF FEST KARAOKE AFTER-PARTY
TUESDAY, JUNE 4 | 9PM - MIDNIGHT
The Tulsa Eagle
1338 E. 3rd Street, Tulsa, OK
Tulsa Eagle and Goff Fest host a unique karaoke after party at the intersection of architecture and song. Join Goff Fest and friends after the architecture trivia event in the Tulsa Pearl District for a celebratory night of music and friendship. Grab a drink and settle in as we toast Bruce Goff and look forward to an exciting weekend of educational programming and community building.
BRUCE GOFF’S BIRTHDAY PARTY
FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2024 | 6PM - 9PM
TAF x Archer Studios
109 N. MLK Jr. Blvd, Tulsa, OK
Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Twisted Arts and Goff Fest present a Pride Kick-Off Party and Bruce Goff Birthday celebration in the famed Tulsa Arts District during the First Friday Art Crawl. Enjoy food from Que Gusto, drinks from Heirloom Rustic Ales and an extra special Bruce Goff Birthday Cake from local chef, Bill Harris. Included in Tulsa Artist Fellowship’s First Fridays Art Installations will be Britni Harris’ Goff-inspired ceiling hang and Jamie Pierson’s Goff-inspired platform structures.
DRAMA CLUB AFTER-PARTY
FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 2024 | 9PM - 2AM
The Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater)
1381 Riverside Dr., Tulsa, OK
Tickets available at the door for $10
The Links and Friends present Drama Club, a monthly dance party hosted by Pop House Music in the iconic Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater), designed by Bruce Goff. Dance the night away with the ghosts of Bruce Goff, Olinka Hrdy, and Patti Adams Shriner.
“BRUCE’S TULSA” SELF-GUIDED BUILDING TOUR
SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2024 | 10AM - 12PM
TAF x Archer Studios Annex
109 N. MLK Jr. Blvd, Tulsa, OK
Meet Goff Fest volunteers at the Tulsa Artist Fellowship Archer Studios Annex Gallery facing MLK Jr. Blvd. to start your own tour of Bruce Goff buildings in Tulsa using a digital map or paper printout created for Goff Fest. Each home will have a sign indicating which homes are open to the public and those that are closed. We ask that you respect our Goff building stewards and their property. The Goff building digital map will launch on our website Saturday (6/8).
DRAG BRUNCH
SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2024 | 11AM - 1:30PM
Elote Cafe (The Day Building)
514 S. Boston Ave, Tulsa, OK
Elote Cafe hosts a weekly drag brunch on Saturdays in the heart of downtown Tulsa in the famous Goff-designed Day Building, formerly the home of Nelson’s Buffeteria. Take a trip down memory lane in Libby Billings’ flagship restaurant and join some of Tulsa’s best drag queens with architecture, or enjoy brunch on the patio in the heart of Tulsa’s Deco District. There are two seatings for Drag Brunch, and both require tickets. Patio seating is first come, first serve.
The Day Building features a rectangular plan, two-story masonry structure with brick walls and multiple reveals framing openings on the front façade. It was designed as a commercial building for a dentist. Dr. Day sold the building to C.C. Cole of the Boston Avenue Methodist Church Building Committee soon after completion. The two-story building is rectangular in plan. The brick facade has stone accents arranged in receding reveal planes, framing each opening. The result is a classic two-part commercial block. The design continues the theme-variation-development of a decorative feature into an organizational framework. According to De Long, this theme of receding reveals was employed in other projects by Goff and can also be found in the work of the European architects Josef Hoffman, Clemens Holzmeister, and Wilhelm Kreis, whose projects were familiar to Goff.
THE DRUNKARD AND OLIO
SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 2024 | 7PM
The Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater)
1381 Riverside Dr., Tulsa, OK
Tickets Available Here
Enjoy a unique evening of audience participation and theatrical fun in “The Drunkard,” an “old-time melodrama!” Boo and hiss the villain, cheer on the hero, sing along to some grand old songs, and enjoy some of the Tulsa area’s finest talent in the “Olio” preceding the play.
Built for Patti Adams Shriner in 1928, this is the only building Bruce Goff created in the International Style, largely because Shriner fashioned herself as a contemporary of the many European musicians and artists of the time. Built as both a home and a studio where Shriner could teach piano and host performances and recitals, the building is now the home to the longest-running theatrical experience in America, the weekly performance of the Drunkard at the Spotlight Theater. In addition to the iconic stucco exterior and flat roof, the building is known for its large glass circular window that faces the Arkansas River. Goff tapped the artist Olinka Hrdy to create murals for the building, inspired by the seven muses. Shriner agreed to work with Hrdy as long as there was no reference to jazz music, which she hated. Hrdy snuck the letters “J-A-Z-Z” into the design of the murals to only show up in certain light. Another unique post-construction feature of the building is a hand-dug tunnel underneath the building created by the theater in the 1960s to allow actors to move from the front of the auditorium to the back of the stage without going outside.
GOFF ON THE LAWN
SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2024 | 10AM - 12PM
The Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater)
1381 Riverside Dr., Tulsa, OK
Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater) Cry Baby Hill Race Open House & Bruce Goff Puppet Display, featuring Scraps Designs’ Pop-Up Playscape. Informal Tours of Riverside Studio (Spotlight Theater) at 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (Donations Accepted).
Join Goff Fest, the Spotlight Theater, and the Riverside Studio community for an open house event during the Tulsa Tough Cry Baby Hill races. Riverside Studio opens to the public for prime race viewing and an architecturally inspiring cooling station throughout the race day. A cash bar is available, and Goff Fest presents a front-of-house display of the eight-foot-tall Bruce Goff puppet created by J. Preston Witt. Bring the whole family to build and play on the lawn with Scraps Designs’ Pop-Up Playscape, built from Goff-inspired reclaimed materials.
TULSA FOUNDATION FOR ARCHITECTURE “SNEAK-A-PEEK”:
THE TULSA CLUB HOTEL
SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2024 | 1PM - 4PM (First entry at 1:00PM, last entry at 3:00PM)
Tulsa Club Hotel
115 E. 5th Street, Tulsa, OK
$20/$15 - Tickets Available Here
Tulsa boasts many impressive buildings throughout the city – many of which few people can see inside. The goal of TFA’s SNEAK-A-PEEK program is to give those who love architecture and history an opportunity to see behind the doors of Tulsa’s most interesting buildings through self-guided exploration with accompanying written information about the property’s history. This SNEAK-A-PEEK features the architecturally distinctive Tulsa Club Hotel in partnership with Goff Fest!
ABOUT GOFF FEST
With the support of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Goff Fest was created from the vision of artist Karl Jones and filmmaker Britni Harris, who felt Goff’s work was underappreciated and hoped “to share an interest in Bruce Goff’s story with a wider regional and national audience.”
Organized by the Goff Center of the Continuous Present (GCCP)*, the festival will be held in various venues throughout Tulsa, highlighting its unique architectural history and the role Bruce Goff played in that revival.
ABOUT BRUCE GOFF
Bruce Goff, who passed in 1982, lived a life charged with unabashed creativity while shrouding in controversy. Having grown up in Tulsa, his work in architecture began at the young age of twelve when he apprenticed for the architectural firm, Rush, Endacott and Rush. Goff’s philosophy embraced the individual, the mysterious and the “continuous present”–a term coined by Gertrude Stein that he often used to describe his design style where the past and present merge into a continuous stream without beginning nor ends.
Mentored by Frank Lloyd Wright during his early years, Goff was one of the rare architects he admired for his creativity and independent ethos.
Goff’s contentious exit from the University of Oklahoma, where he taught and served as the Chairman for the School of Architecture, and the ongoing debate of the design ownership of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church were filled with whispers of unacceptance for Goff’s eclectic designs and homosexuality in the conservative backdrop of mid-century Oklahoma. Even fifteen years after Goff’s death, Goff’s masterpiece design, Shin’en Kan, was destroyed from intentional arson.
Today, a group of Goff advocates aims to change the discourse, to open dialogues of truth and celebrate the life and work of America’s best unknown organic architect. The newly formed GCCP continues this public discussion with Goff Fest.
ABOUT GCCP & ORGANIZING SPONSORS
The Goff Fest is proudly organized by the Goff Center of the Continuous Present (GCCP) and is made possible by the generous support of its partners and sponsors, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, AIA Eastern Oklahoma, The Tulsa Club Hotel, Ross Group, Elote Cafe and Catering, Tulsa Artists’ Coalition, Center for Public Secrets, Tulsa Spotlight Theatre, Friends of Kebyar, Price Tower Arts Center, Tulsa Historical Society, Shuffles Tulsa, OATH Law, Studio 66, H.O.P.E. Testing, Oklahomans for Equality and ahha.
The Goff Center of the Continuous Present’s mission is to promote beauty in all its strength by encouraging the mysterious, the uncomfortable, and the disobedient aspects of art and architecture.
VISITOR EXPERIENCE
Tulsa Artist Fellowship strives to provide a welcoming and accessible experience. Our public programming is free, documented, and archived.
To learn more about Tulsa Artist Fellowship programming, please follow our social media channels or signup for public emails at tulsaartistfellowship.org. For questions about accessibility, to request accommodation, or to share feedback, please email info@tulsaartistfellowship.org or call +1 (539) 302-4855.