TAP Architecture

Old Central – New Home of OSU Honors College, Stillwater

Awards: AIA Central OK Preservation Honor Award, State Historic Preservation Citation of Merit, Build Oklahoma Award

“Well, Josiah,” said Cash Cade, the wily superintendent of construction for the Oklahoma A & M College Building, “it’s gonna be a hot one today. No trees to block the wind across this prairie either so don’t sit here a thinkin’ it’ll be cooler later. Times a wastin’ so you best get up on the roof an’ lay on these hot old metal shingles…” Josiah knew the end of the day would come quicker the sooner he started so he climbed the long ladder to the top and began the arduous, sweat-laced task of putting the shingles on the roof, each placed by hand with the exactness only pride in craftsmanship brings…

How did this 100 year old shingle held in my hand actually get on the building? My mind could only invent the circumstance from snippets of recorded history. Yet a great weight was felt upon my shoulders with the one thing I knew certain as I held this piece of history…respect the labor, sweat, determination, and pioneer spirit of the man who placed it there so many years ago. Though too deteriorated to save, historic precedent dictated that this evidence now in hand lead in only one direction-to respect this long- assumed-lost artifact, accurately recreate it as far as the available evidence allowed us, without conjecture, and perhaps carry on the same legacy of craftsmanship started nearly 100 years in the hope a future someone would also respect our legacy of work.

Such was the mind set of the design team tasked with the restoration of Old Central at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK. Add a dedicated Owner and expert craftsmen with a common vision and you have the remarkable rehabilitation story of Old Central, part restoration, part preservation and part rehabilitation. Through a vocabulary of clear definition of old and new, with the elder informing the younger and the younger respecting the elder, yet living comfortably in each others grasp, Old Central has new life breathed into it. We hope it stands as an example of what can be done with proper dedication to historic rehabilitation tenets. The work accomplished by the team will now become a past tale to a future generation. History speaks from the physical we save; history gasps at the physical lost. Fortunately, standing in the halls at Old Central you can clearly hear the echoes of the generations past and aspire to be heard by those in the future. Congratulations to OSU for their vision and dedication to save a historic jewel, for we are all now entwined in the story of Josiah!

Rick Lueb, Project Architect, Principal, TAP ARCHITECTURE