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.
The Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture announces John Harris as Associate Dean for Research ad interim, effective Aug. 25, 2026, until the permanent position is filled.
Gibbs College is pleased to announce the 2026 Gibbs College Faculty & Staff Awards recipients. These individuals were recognized by Dean Butzer during the Gibbs College Back to School Meeting and will be honored during the Celebration Banquet in October. They were nominated by their colleagues via an open nomination process.
Telesis, the Gibbs College of Architecture’s student journal, has been awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to support its next two issues, “Pause” (Volume IX) and “React” (Volume X).
