The Art Deco style Boston Avenue Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was completed in 1929, when churches were still largely expected to follow traditional Gothic or classical designs.
Instead, Adah Robinson and the architectural team at Rush, Endacott & Rush gave it an unmistakably Art Deco identity.
Its design emerged from the collaboration between Adah Robinson, an artist and art teacher, and Bruce Goff, a remarkably young architect working at Rush, Endacott & Rush. Goff was barely 22 when the commission was awarded.
Its soaring tower, geometric forms and repeated sculptures of praying hands turn a place of worship into a statement of modern architecture.
The ornament carries meaning, drawing on religious symbolism and Oklahoma’s native flora.
Art Deco wasn’t just for commercial skyscrapers and corporate power. Here, it gave faith its own architectural language.
Video courtesy of ninosbuildings/tulsa.architecture on IG