Outré West

Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California

Aug. 22, 2024-Jan. 27, 2025
Eleanor Kirkpatrick Main Gallery

Watch the Curator Panel here

Bruce Goff, Bavinger House

Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California considers the works of a group of architects who were educated and mentored in Oklahoma in the 1950s and 1960s, and later developed groundbreaking design practices in California. Projects like the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the fantastical Pavilion for Japanese Art on the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles demonstrate their imaginative approach to design. Through archival drawings, photographs, and ephemera, Outré West explores how these architects translated their American School education into practices that continue to enrich California’s built environment to this day.

The American School of Architecture emerged from the University of Oklahoma in the postwar period and became known for emphasizing individual creativity and experimentation. Under the guidance of professors like Bruce Goff (1904-82) and Herb Greene (b. 1929), these students were inspired by everyday objects, the natural landscape, and the designs of Native American tribes. While other schools in the United States were heavily influenced by the European Bauhaus and Beaux Arts models, the otherworldly archival drawings featured in Outré West show how students of the American School in Oklahoma transcended the accepted canons of Western architecture.

John Marsh Davis, Home for a family of two and their guests

As their careers took off, many American School alumni migrated to California, where they found a cultural openness and booming post-war economy, as well as dramatic landscapes—the ideal testing grounds for their unconventional approaches to design. Outré West considers the ways in which both Oklahoma and California have attracted ambitious, creative visionaries. Since the 1800s, both places have drawn migrants and transplants from near and far searching for opportunities unfettered by institutional norms and traditions.

American School architects including Violeta Autumn (1930-2012), John Marsh Davis (1931-2019), Arthur Dyson (b. 1940), Donald MacDonald (b. 1935), and Mickey Muennig (1935-2021) realized hundreds of distinctively built works in California. From museums that exemplify organic architecture and breathtaking multimillion-dollar residences dotting the coast to affordable and prefabricated homes designed to address the housing crisis, these collected works reveal bold—and often stubborn—design talents galvanized in Oklahoma, whose ideas were exported to the West Coast.

Mickey Muennig, Interior View of Studio Sleeping Platform

Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California brings together large-scale photographs, architectural models, and press clippings to showcase these architects and their extraordinary artistic innovations. Bruce Goff characterized the American School as one where faculty strove “to develop at least one school [of architecture] where a creative individual [could] find his sense of direction and grow.” Establishing this teaching approach that encouraged creative diversity and intellectual independence, Goff asserted, “We preach no dogma.” This exhibition illustrates an inspiring story of how the outré—or the iconoclastic—American School education, founded and cultivated in Oklahoma, produced an unexpected kinship between the Oklahoma and California contexts and forged a lasting impact on the architectural imaginary of the American West.

Learn more about the architects Find related programs

Guest Curators

Angela M. Person, PhD, is an associate professor of architecture at the University of Oklahoma (OU). She is a cultural geographer and educator whose work explores the intersections of design, community identities, and sustainability. She has published three scholarly books which explore Bruce Goff and the American School of Architecture, affect and heritage environments, and cultural institution facility management. Her award-winning work has been generously supported by the Smithsonian Institution, National Building Museum, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation, and recognized by the Journal of Architectural Education, Society of Architectural Historians, College Art Association, and Center for Architecture.

Stephanie Z. Pilat, PhD, is a professor of architecture at the University of Oklahoma. She is a designer and architectural historian whose teaching and research examines points of intersection between politics and architecture. At OU, Pilat co-leads a team of faculty, students and staff working to bring the legacy of the American School of Architecture to light. Pilat has been named as one of the “30 most admired educators” in the nation by DesignIntelligence magazine. Her research has been generously supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, a Rome Prize from the American Academy, a Wolfsonian-FIU fellowship, an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, a Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Marco Piscitelli, RA, is a lecturer in architecture and interior design at the University of Oklahoma. He is a registered architect and educator whose teaching and research explores the entanglements between building technologies and ecologies. Previously, he practiced design at several award-winning firms in New York on projects ranging in scale from urban planning to furniture design. At OU, Piscitelli advises the local chapter of the American Institute of Architecture Students. In 2023, he curated the archival exhibition Rust on a Razor Blade: Mickey Muennig in Big Sur, 1970-2000 which explored possibilities for organic architecture acting in unstable landscapes. Piscitelli’s research has been generously supported by the Graham Foundation and the Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture.

Curatorial Team
Person, Pilat and Piscitelli are leading an interdisciplinary group of researchers to develop Outré West, including:

• Hans Baldauf and his team at BCV Architects (John Marsh Davis section)
• Rachel Engler, PhD, independent art historian (Violeta Autumn section)
• Christopher Loofs, OU teaching fellow (Arthur Dyson section)
• Ken Marold, OU lecturer (Design and fabrication of full-scale models, with OU students)
• Amber Sarmiento, OU teaching fellow (Donald MacDonald section)
• Michael Szajewski, Melissa Rickman, Kristina Grimsley, Barb Laufersweiler, and Rick Schultz, OU Libraries (Logistical planning)

Outré West is generously funded by a Humanities and Arts in Society Seed Grant from the OU Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships.

This exhibition is supported by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Allied Arts, Annie Bohanon, the Chickasaw Nation, Lila Cohen, Fitzsimmons Architects, E.L. and Thelma Gaylord Foundation, Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture Program for Research Enhancement at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture, Home Creations, HSE Architects, Cliff and Leslie Hudson, the Kanady Family, Peggy Kates, Edward and Barbara Krei, G. David Neff and Suzanne Peck, OU Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships, OU Division of Architecture Professional Advisory Board, H. Russell Pitman Professorship of Architecture, George Records, Lance and Cindy Ruffel, SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital, Storij, TAP Architecture, Velocigo, Visit OKC and Laura Warriner.

A special thanks to the University of Oklahoma Libraries, including personnel in Special Research Collections and Digital Collections and Digitization, who provided essential support in loaning or digitizing more than 100 works held in the American School Archives for the exhibition.