BOK Tower
Skyscraper in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US
BOK Tower (named for the Bank of Oklahoma; formerly known as One Williams Center) is a skyscraper in Downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. At 667 feet (203 m) in height, the 52-story tower was the tallest building in Oklahoma until it was surpassed by Devon Tower in 2011. It was built in 1976 and designed by Minoru Yamasaki & Associates, the same architect who designed the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City. This structure is based closely on Tower 1; former CEO John Williams liked the design of the WTC so much he hired the same architect to build him a 1/2 scale model of Tower 1.
01Design and history
BOK Tower's lobby has marble walls and wall hangings similar to those in the former World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York. BOK Tower was built for the Williams Companies, whose CEO at the time, John Williams, decided to choose Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the Twin Towers in New York, as the office building's designer. Originally, Yamasaki designed two 30-story replicas for the project in Tulsa. However, prior to construction, Williams wanted a more 'dramatic' design. According to Williams, he presented this idea by stacking a tower model on top of the other. As a result, the plan for a quarter scale replica was changed to a single 52-story tower, double the height of the two planned towers. The similarities to the World Trade Center led executives to joke that the architects just halved the plans for a World Trade Center tower.
BOK Tower, as completed, was the tallest building in Oklahoma and contained 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m2) of office space. Within four months of its completion, BOK Tower was 80 percent occupied.
In December 2005, a water main broke and flooded electrical equipment in the basement. In 2006, BOK Tower underwent $16 million in repairs and renovations. $6 million was spent on renovated pedestrian bridges, granite coating for the base, new fitness centers, and windows. The remaining $10 million was used to fix damage from the 2005 flood.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “BOK Tower”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- The BOK Building.jpg by Caleb Long, CC BY-SA 2.5
- BOK Tower, Tusla Oklahoma.jpg by NevinThompson, CC BY-SA 4.0
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