A project of the Oklahoma City / County Historical Society

I.M. Pei Plan

The I.M. Pei Plan

Renowned international architect I.M. Pei was contracted in 1964 by the Urban Action Foundation, a non-profit formed to help launch an urban renewal program for downtown Oklahoma City. His work included creating a 10- by 12-foot model showing how downtown might look in 1989 after the program’s completion. The model was part of an ambitious public relations effort that also included a promotional film, “A Tale of Two Cities,” aimed at gaining support for tearing down hundreds of old buildings to make way for a new downtown skyline.
Pei’s work over a century included icons around the world, including the Louvre Pyramid. But not many cities can boast of an entire downtown reshaped by the architect. Oklahoma City, however, hasn’t boasted of Pei’s work here in decades. Many of those who remember his legacy, generally, are generally pretty critical of his unfinished vision.
Most folks under the age of 40, meanwhile, don’t even realize Pei stepped foot in our town.
Pei was in his mid-40s and already earning international accolades when he was hired by city fathers who were seeking to launch an urban renewal program in the early 1960s. From his Manhattan office, Pei and his crew created a model, renderings and plans for a dramatic recreation of downtown Oklahoma City.
A $100 million regional shopping “Galleria” was to be the crown jewel of this new downtown. High-rise hotels and office buildings, a spectacular park and condominium housing would encircle it.
Pei told civic and business leaders only the combination of offices and a financial district, a cultural and recreation area, a convention center and hotels, plenty of retail shopping, and housing nurturing each other would revitalize the central business district.
To get the job done, much of the old downtown would have to go.
The Oklahoman’s Mary Jo Nelson correctly noted that Sept. 7, 1965, stood as a date with importance rivaling that of the April 22, 1889, Land Run. It was on that day the Oklahoma City Council adopted the Pei Plan for urban redevelopment.
Just weeks before the vote, Pei was featured in a Life magazine cover story about urban redevelopment, and his plan for Oklahoma City was featured side by side with the Kennedy Memorial Museum and projects in New York City and Philadelphia.
Tens of millions of dollars were being provided by Congress for the makeover. Liberty Bank, Fidelity Bank and Kerr McGee were committed to building new towers that lined up with Pei’s master plan. His model of downtown, revolutionary itself in its scale and detail, was displayed at City Hall and State Fair Park to win popular support.
Contractors hired by Urban Renewal leveled 447 buildings, and private owners tore out another 75 or so over 220 acres between NW 6 and Interstate 40, from Shartel to the BNSF Railway.
By the mid-1970s, popular support for Urban Renewal, and Pei, had vanished as dynamite and bulldozers took down landmarks like the Criterion and Warner theaters, the Baum Building, and the Biltmore and Huckins hotels.
The downtown mall never materialized and the site instead became a massive two-level parking structure that was intended to be the base of the shopping center (the site is now home to Devon Energy Center).
Pei was blamed for the aggressive approach to tearing historic buildings while his embrace of brutalist architecture did not match local tastes.
He also was blamed for the actions of private developers. He did not call for destruction of the Biltmore or Huckins hotels. He urged city fathers not to tear down Main Street without first creating a new home for downtown’s surviving retailers.
By 1988, the Pei Plan was abandoned and the Oklahoma City Council declared “downtown is dead.” And it was at that moment the seeds were planted for MAPS and the revival of Oklahoma City.
Pei’s legacy is mixed. The Myriad Gardens, inspired by the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, is perhaps the best of the Pei Plan to have been carried out, stubbornly and against all odds by Dean A. McGee. The former Kerr McGee tower, now headquarters to SandRidge Energy, is considered the best office tower design based on Pei’s master plan.
Large swaths of blight were cleared to make way for the gardens and the Cox Convention Center.
But Pei’s plan also eliminated what was a good street grid, albeit with what was a zigzag of north-south streets crossing between Sheridan and Reno Avenues. Pei replaced the street grid with superblocks that are hostile toward pedestrian traffic. That, in turn, has hurt significant retail development in the Central Business District.
In implementing Pei’s vision, city fathers committed their own errors, choosing to tear down aging but functional buildings in favor of very uncertain prospects for a new mall, hotels and housing. They were in a rush to create something shiny and new.
He validated their efforts during his last visit in 1976. He told locals he was “very impressed” with their accomplishment and estimated they were halfway complete in fulfilling his vision.
Flaws aside, downtown has largely built on Pei’s legacy. His words in the 1965 Life magazine article reflect on both the city’s past and future as it continues to evolve.
“It’s like surgery; it takes a long time for the tissue around a wound to heal,” Pei said. “The city has to echo life. If our life is rough and tumble, so is the city. I’ve always felt that ugliness with vitality is tolerable. The great danger our cities face today is that their vitality will be sapped by too much concern for instant beauty.”

Downtown Oklahoma City urban renewal looking east on Main St. Staff photo by Jim Argo dated June 1974. Original from Oklahoman print archive, copied Friday, April 30, 2010. Copy photo by Doug Hoke, The Oklahoman. ORG XMIT: KOD

Downtown Before I.M. Pei

The I.M. Pei Plan marked the beginning of the end for the downtown that was once the retail, entertainment and cultural center of Oklahoma City. While hundreds of buildings, many historic, were lost forever, they are preserved on film thanks to the efforts of the Oklahoma Historical Society and collectors throughout the state. The following photos are just a sampling of the collections being assembled by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Some of the later photos and renderings relating to the Pei Plan were provided by Retro Metro OKC, which strives to increase awareness of Oklahoma City’s history. Extensive photo galleries can be viewed in the Retro Metro OKC collections and at the Oklahoma Historical Society, www.okhistory.com.

From his Manhattan Tower in 1963, I.M. Pei came up with a costly plan for redeveloping downtown that Oklahoma City residents eventually came to thoroughly dislike.

Contractors hired by Urban Renewal leveled 447 buildings, and private owners tore out another 75 or so over 220 acres between NW 6 and Interstate 40, from Shartel to the BNSF Railway.
Pei’s legacy is mixed. The Myriad Gardens, inspired by the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, is perhaps the best of the Pei Plan to have been carried out, stubbornly and against all odds by Dean A. McGee. The former Kerr McGee tower, now headquarters to SandRidge Energy, is considered the best office tower design based on Pei’s master plan.
Large swaths of blight were cleared to make way for the gardens and the Cox Convention Center.
But Pei’s plan also eliminated what was a good street grid, albeit with what was a zigzag of north-south streets crossing between Sheridan and Reno Avenues. Pei replaced the street grid with superblocks that are hostile toward pedestrian traffic.
 
I.M. Pei started his plan by walking block by block, interviewing merchants and office tenants. His firm established a downtown office, where three people spent months drawing up maps, surveys and plans to be unveiled by the man who later would win acclaim for work at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Museum, the National Gallery of Art and the Louvre pyramid.
A 1964 promotional film, “A Tale of Two Cities,” was funded by city civic leaders and painted a dire picture of downtown and a utopian vision of how the city could emerge a decade later:
“A healthy downtown is vital to Oklahoma City. Our city’s vitality is dependent on eliminating the present malignant tumor existing downtown before it spreads. This tumor can be removed through a dramatic renewal plan which is designed to guarantee rebirth.
“This will be a city designed to never grow old. It will have the elements of greatness and be proudly planned to serve you.”
Downtown in the early 1960s was showing signs of distress with major department stores moving to newer suburban locations, including Shepherd Mall. Retail vacancy rates were climbing upward.

What we lost

The Pei Plan pointed out dilapidated properties needing to be cleared. But to fully realize his vision, Oklahoma City was pressed to clear entire blocks and ultimately destroyed dozens of historic buildings. They included:

The Mercantile Building 
The Mercantile Building, 30 N Hudson Avenue, which was designed by architect Andrew Solomon Layton. It was built as the Levy Building and later renamed the Mercantile Building. It was built by the original owners, brothers Sam and Leon Levy, who constructed the first five stories in 1910. In 1926, they added three more floors. The detailing, captured in a photo essay authored by Mary Jo Nelson in the mid-1970s, was ornate and rivaled only by First National Center.
The building was destroyed on February 29, 1976, by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority to make way for a Galleria shopping mall as called for as part of the Pei Plan authored by I.M. Pei. The shopping mall was never built, and the site remained a parking lot for 35 years until it became the site of Devon Energy Center.
The Hales Building
The Hales building, 201 W Main, originally was built by Oklahoma City Banker E.H. Cooke for his State Bank, which later morphed into First National Bank. W.T. Hales purchased half of the the building in 1915 and bought the last half in 1928. The Hales Building was directly north of the Katz Drug Store, famous for Clara Luper’s sit-in on August 19, 1958. Mauran & Russell of St. Louis were architects for the Hales building, while the Selden Breck Construction Co of St. Louis was the contractor.
The building was faced with Bedford Stone from Indiana and had imposing street facades. Bedford stone is a light colored, fine grained limestone that is very uniform and well suited to large architectural projects. It was used in the state capitols of Indiana, Georgia and Illinois as well as hundreds of other signature buildings, both public and private. The finish throughout the building was quartersawn white oak. The floors were of Tennessee marble with a wainscot of Italian marble. The building was one of the last historic structures torn down by Urban Renewal after a long legal fight was waged to save it.
 
The Biltmore Hotel 
If you lived in Oklahoma City in the late 1970s, you saw or heard stories from family and friends who talked about seeing the demise of the Biltmore Hotel. Charles Colcord is best known for his razed mansion and the still-standing Colcord Hotel. Colcord also led the group that set out to build the Biltmore Hotel in the late 1920s.
Designed by architects Hawk and Parr, by the time it was completed in 1932 the Biltmore was 33 stories high and was heralded as the state’s tallest building. Financial woes plagued the hotel throughout most of its life and the doors were closed in June 1973. The Biltmore’s destruction is often blamed on the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority and planner I.M. Pei, but their initial plans called for the hotel to be a part of the Myriad Gardens. The owners forced the demolition, not Urban Renewal.
Thousands of people turned out to watch as the massive structure was dynamited October 16, 1977. Ironically, the Biltmore had undergone a $3 million renovation in the mid-1960s and was renamed the Sheraton-Oklahoma Hotel. The hotel was one of the largest demolitions in the country to date when it was blown up in 1977 to make way for the Myriad Gardens.
 
The YMCA Central Branch 
The building was a rare example of the International style of architecture when it opened in 1952. The building was extensively damaged by the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The property was sold by the YMCA, and the new owners tore it down a couple years later to make way for a surface parking lot. Serious developers believed it could be saved and converted into housing. A few years later, I suspect the building could have been saved and converted into a very special example of downtown housing.
 
Warner Theater 
The Warner Theater was built in 1905 by one of the city’s original founding fathers civic leaders, Henry Overholser, and was known for years as the Overholser Opera House.
It was used by many of the most famous stock and opera companies in theatrical history, by bands and symphony orchestras, and other entertainment units.
When purchased by John and Peter Sinopoulo (1916-17), it was turned into a combination vaudeville-movie house and lived again as the Orpheum Theater on that vaudeville circuit. It was the only theater in Oklahoma City completely equipped with stage, dressing rooms, scenery handling machinery, and other equipment, for legitimate stock companies. Such amenities, and its location across the street from the Myriad Gardens, should have made it an ideal revived performance venue. Instead, it was torn down by the Oklahoma City Urban Renewal Authority to make way for a downtown Galleria mall that never materialized. The site remained a parking lot for 30 years before it was developed into what is now Devon Energy Center.
 
County Courthouse
The 1906 Oklahoma County Courthouse was an unmistakable landmark in the downtown skyline. The Romanesque style courthouse was designed by architects William A. Wells and George Burlinghof. Commercial interests created controversy over the location and design early on, arguing whether the courthouse should face Main Street or Grand (now Sheridan Avenue). A compromise led to the entrance facing Dewey between Grand and Main — an awkward arrangement that prompted most visitors to enter through the side and back entrances and rarely using the grand front entrance.
Exterior walls were constructed of Indiana limestone with the interior floors of granite and the walls and stairways of Vermont marble. The population quickly outgrew the building, and county government operations soon moved to surrounded office buildings. When the county moved to its current location at Hudson and Walker, the old courthouse was leased to the federal government for wartime agencies during World War II. A fire damaged the building in 1944, and development interests persuaded the county to sell the building in 1950. The property was converted to parking and eventually developed into a Holiday Inn, which is now the Character First Institute.
 
Baum Building 
Built in 1909 and completed by 1910, the Baum building at Sheridan Avenue and Robinson was designed to mimic the Doges Palace in Venice, Italy. The building was built in an era that also saw construction of the Skirvin Hotel, the original Oklahoman building and the Colcord building. From 1923 to 1957 the building was home to Fidelity National Bank.
The building was targeted for clearance by the Urban Renewal Authority as part of the 1960s era Pei Plan. Then Mayor George Shirk hired engineers to see if the building could be moved, but no plan for its rescue emerged. The building was razed in 1973.
 
Criterion Theater 
If Penn Station is the national disgrace when it comes to destroyed architectural beauty, the Criterion Theater is Oklahoma City’s Penn Station. The theater boasted a French-style lobby and auditorium with an art deco mezzanine, and was operated by Paramount. Built in 1921 at 118 W Main, it originally seated 1,900 but later reduced its size to 1,650.
The building still was in use just months before it was destroyed in 1973 by the Urban Renewal Authority to make way for Century Center Mall.

Bringing the Model Back to Life

The I.M. Pei project team began work with a Feb. 3, 2010 meeting convened by Rachel Mosman, who at the time represented the Oklahoma City County Historical Society and Retro Metro OKC in bringing the model back to public attention.
The groups met at Boulevard Cafeteria and agreed to bring various contacts, resources and efforts together to move the I.M. Pei model from an underground storage unit to Oklahoma City’s General Services building.
On Feb. 19, 2010, three large crates containing the model were moved to the General Services building. It was there that a forklift was used to lift the crates to a secure second story work room. The model was later inspected by Wiley White, one of the nation’s premier architectural model builders, who determined it was in excellent shape and in need of minimal clean-up and repair.
When it returned to public display, it did so with a permanent stable base for the first time since its original presentation.. The base, designed by Hans Butzer and Jeremy Gardner and assembled by Nathan Gardner, included space for informational side panels to provide visitors more insight into the Pei Plan and what did and did not transpire over the following 25 years before the plan was fazed out. The cost of the model was paid for by the Inasmuch Foundation, which also provided funding for the rebuilding of the Retro Metro OKC website.

Look carefully at these close-up photos of the I.M. Pei model. You may be surprised by what you will discover. Contrary to popular belief, the model shows Pei did not call for the Biltmore Hotel to be torn down. The model also shows Pei’s initial recommendation was to keep Main Street open and crossing through the planned downtown shopping Galleria. The model shows Pei wanted the YWCA to remain as well. What else can we learn from this snapshot in time?

More than 250 people attended the unveiling of the Pei model on May 3, 2010 with presentations delivered by Mayor Mick Cornett and State Historical Society Director Bob Blackburn. The model remained on display for several months before going back into storage. Rachel Mosman, archivist with the Oklahoma Historical Society, arranged for the model to return to public display after doing further repairs on the model lighting.

The model remains in the physical collections of the Oklahoma City County Historical Society.

– Written By Steve Lackmeyer