What's Next for Frank Lloyd Wright's Only Skyscraper?

In the city of Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1956, a building was completed that holds a particular distinction in the architectural world. Price Tower is the only skyscraper designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and it was (unsuccessfully) submitted for consideration as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. More recently, Price Tower has become almost as well-known for the legal battle surrounding it as for its distinctive design — which is itself cause for alarm for some architecture enthusiasts.

Earlier this month, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy responded in court to a lawsuit. The plaintiffs in that suit, Copper Tree Group, are the owners of Price Tower; at issue is whether or not Copper Tree Group must continue to abide by the terms of an easement granted years earlier to the Conservancy. As Annie Aguiar explained in an article for The New York Times, the tower’s owners believe that the easement is no longer in effect; the Conservacy disagrees.

The easement would have required some Wright-designed furniture to remain on the premises. Instead, Copper Tree Group sold several items to a reseller, citing financial strain. In earlier reporting for the Times, Aguiar noted that Price Tower’s buyers had ties to the crypto industry as well as ambitious plans to turn the building into a technological hub.

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This legal skirmish doesn’t show signs of abating any time soon. However, there’s one piece of encouraging news for architecture buffs. According to a Bartlesville tourism website, architectural tours of the building’s exterior were set to resume earlier this month. That said, the exterior is currently the only part of the building there for the viewing right now; the same site also states that “the Tower’s interior remains closed.”