Living Through Tulsa's Time
About this episode
The episode explores the complex history of Tulsa, focusing on themes of displacement and urban renewal through the lens of Brutalist architecture.
Hello Interactors, A couple weeks ago, I found myself in Tulsa for the first time. I left pleasantly surprised. There’s a lot of private money flowing into this town, but the city is filled with sorted stories about land, who holds it, who loses it, and how that loss and potential return is engineered. On Juneteenth, the city’s history feels especially close so I thought I’d unpack the layers of displacement, violence, and reinvention that lurk beneath a city still struggling to face them. CONCRETE, COALS, AND A CITY THAT CONCEALS Raise your hand if you like Brutalist architecture (I’m raising mine.) I just didn’t expect to find it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was visiting for my niece’s wedding. The Brut Hotel is a converted Brutalist tower a few blocks from the Arkansas River and it’s all raw concrete. Even the floors and counters. Most people see Brutalism as cold — which is nice on a hot Tulsa day — but I read it as honest and direct. A bit like a Midwestern prairie settler stereotype. After all, the style did emerge in postwar Europe from an egalitarian impulse. It was meant to be democratic architecture stripped of ornamental excesses of fancy city folks. It arrived in…
More episodes of Interplace
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Interplace podcast page.