The American School team is proud to partner with the University of Oklahoma Libraries to begin an oral history project. The project will collect and preserve stories from alumni, family, friends, and clients of the American School. Dr. Shooka Motamedi, lecturer of architecture at the University of Oklahoma, is conducting these interviews, which will be transcribed and uploaded onto the OU Libraries searchable platform in the coming months.
Our first interview, with Bob Bowlby (OU Architecture, Class of 1957), was a delightful conversation filled with anecdotes about his time at OU and beyond. Bowlby (b. 1934, Oklahoma City) studied at OU and later worked for Bruce Goff in Bartlesville before becoming a licensed architect in the early 1960s. Around the time he designed the well-known Founders Bank in Oklahoma City, he became a prolific architectural photographer. He took photos of many mid-century buildings in Oklahoma and beyond for various publications. Over the years, he lived and worked in Kentucky, Houston, Denver, Lake Tahoe, and Carmel before returning to Denver, where he settled permanently. Today, Bowlby’s photograph and slide collection is held by the American School Archive.
If you or anyone you know would like to be interviewed as part of the American School oral history project, please complete this form.
Header image: The Founder’s Bank, designed by Bob Bowlby and completed in 1964 in Oklahoma City (demolished in 2018). Photograph by Julius Schulman.
Gibbs College of Architecture is proud to recognize Petya Stefanoff, who is pursuing her doctorate in the Planning, Design & Construction (PDC) program, has been appointed the new role of Director of Community Development for the City of Shawnee, Oklahoma. She joined the city in 2024.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce that Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture and Design and director of the Institute for Quality Communities, has received national recognition for her book Model Schools in the Model City. The book has been named a finalist for the 2026 the PROSE Awards.
Gibbs College of Architecture Regional + City Planning Professor of Practice Vanessa Morrison and Associate Professor of Architecture Deborah Richards’ Open Design Collective received top honors at the inaugural BlackSpace Urbanist Collective Studio KIN Pitch Night Competition, held last month in Brooklyn, New York City.
