Cherokee Gothic

 By Terry Chishimba

    The story goes that when the acclaimed architect Frank Loyed Wright visited The University of Oklahoma in 1954 and saw the Bizzell Library he turned to the Oklahoman rebel architect Bruce Goff chuckled and asked, "What is this Cherokee gothic?”. Referring to the unique style of collegiate gothic that the building portrayed. The legitimacy of this story is unknown, but from it, we get what might seem like the most bizarre combination of words in Architecture “Cherokee-Gothic”. The words almost seem to repel each other as Cherokee represents unique artistic attributes of the Native American culture, very traditional, on the other hand, gothic, a foreign urban architectural style from the 12th to 16th-century European world. Maybe the style can be best understood as a fusion of cultures that would otherwise have clashed with each other. Blindly progressive the University of Oklahoma chose to celebrate the Cherokee culture rather than dismiss and devalue it as we have seen in many instances of colonial behavior. Today Cherokee gothic is a term used proudly to represent The University of Oklahoma’s architecture from the new buildings such as Headington College to the old such as The Oklahoma Memorial Union. To elaborate on the eccentricity of this style I will walk you through an exploration of collegiate gothic and how its combination with Cherokee ornamentation brings life to the redbrick OU campus we all love today. 

Schools That Time Travel (Time Travel 101)

If you are a curious cat with a passion for modernism and maybe a hint of American patriotism. This might be the point where you ask yourself "Why was America making buildings of ancient European styles in the 20th century?”  “Had it not gone through its architectural evolution to distinguish itself from the European styles?” The answer is not so simple but here’s my summary. Although the great power had established its own identity through culture and architecture after its independence from the British it still preferred the old European tried and tested architectural styles for its formal institutional buildings. European architecture had gone through millenniums of creating architectural languages that communicated exactly what institutions wanted it to. Therefore, American institutions were comfortable using European architecture to express their values to the masses. American banks made their buildings similar to old Greek temples to illustrate stability, safety, and trust. And the biggest architectural trend of the 19th and 20th century in American colleges was collegiate gothic. 

The revival of Gothic architecture seemed to have come of out nowhere, it was an old style even for the European world. But a good place to start for Collegiate gothic is with the Cope and Stewardson (C&S) architectural firm that designed the Bryn and Mawr College of Pennsylvania in the 1880s, the building was gothic in every way. In the coming years, more schools hired them to build more of these old-style buildings. But why was it so trendy among American colleges? The better question would be why were these new colleges so attracted to an old style? Would you be surprised to know that it was all a marketing technique? Of course not. Schools such as Yale, Duke, Boston, and Princeton had one major problem, they were new! Their reputation was just being formed and their identity didn’t attract crowds of students and they were keen on attracting as many new students as possible. To solve this problem, they looked at the oldest schools that they knew with first-class prestige and status. And for that, they had to travel across the Atlantic Ocean to marvel at England’s truly gothic age schools of Cambridge and Oxford. They wanted to look as old, trusted, and historical as these schools but who wants to wait for time? As my Nigerian friend once told me, “Time wait for no man,” and man should not wait for it either. So, architects like the C&S developed a new gothic style that resembled the old in the modern age, and thus collegiate gothic was born. By doing this they added centuries of history to their institutions that they otherwise didn’t have. At Yale, there is a story that the architect of the Harkness Tower, James Gamble Rogers poured acid on the tower to make it look extra old. Who said only physicists know the secrets of time travel?

The Model and The Dress 

So, when a new library was to be built in honor of William Bennett Bizzell In 1928 there is no surprise it was a collegiate gothic building. It structurally looks gothic, but its aesthetics can only be described as Oklahoman. Going back to the story with Wright and Goff, what did Wright see that resembled the Cherokee culture so distinctly that he had to point it out? Well, we might never know what was in that ambitious creative’s crazy mind, but we can imagine. I recalled my first experience seeing the token of OU. I was blessed to have visited Yale College 6 years ago, although I do not remember much, I have glimpses of the texture and form of the buildings, they were truly collegiate gothic. When I was coming to OU in 2022, I was expecting the same quadrangle gothic towers that filled the streets of Yale College, but instead, I found myself in a very open space. Buildings apart from each other and among them all something familiar to the Yale campus caught my eye. My love for buildings gravitated me toward it. The more I got closer the more it became weirder it was not the same it was more different, more textured, and most of all more colorful (my first encounter with the ubiquity of Norman Redbrick). The building felt like a typical old campus building but it was dressed differently. By then I did not have the architectural knowledge nor vocabulary to describe the difference between the buildings I saw at Yale and The Bizzell Library.  

The Cherokee people’s respect for nature is . The art can be distinguished by how its form, color, and patterns come together to create eloquent rhythmic designs. Rhythm can be seen throughout their weaving, beadwork, portray, and textiles. Where this great art meets the Bizzell Library is through its ornamentation. Although the building's ornaments vary from those of a typical collegiate gothic building that is not what makes it different from them but their rhythmic positioning. Through all its busy ornamentation the building has vertical and horizontal rhythms by colors, patterns, and texture, all the elements working together to create a dress beautifully fit for the library. The redbrick contrasts with the white limestone quoins that all seem to be flowing vertically, the floral ornaments on the window surrounds emphasize this vertical flow while creating intricate connections along a horizontal line of itself. The non-believers would argue that rhythm is not sufficient to establish an entire subgenre of gothic architecture. To those, I say compare the Bizzell Library with Monnet Hall just two buildings behind the library. Monnet Hall is perhaps the only building at OU that is purely collegiate gothic not only due to its lack of the redbrick but lack of bizarre Oklahoma ornamentation that other buildings at OU bear. To describe it all would make this piece longer than it should be but do me a favor and really look at the library next time you are rushing to class. 

  

Conclusion

To be honest with you when I was writing this I did not know where I was going with it but I have come to see it as a story of the survival of a traditional culture within the American culture that was still establishing itself even in the 20th Century. Architecture is one of the strongest capsules of history and culture, rarely was it used to capsulate and preserve the culture of societies colonized by the Europeans. In this story, we see an artistic art form that not only has gotten to describe Oklahoma but the Native American’s perseverance rise to be appreciated with absolute pride by the people of Oklahoma from Tulsa to Norman Cherokee gothic has dug its roots into the modern history of Architecture.