Mutual Savings and Loan Association Building, Oklahoma City Oklahoma

The Mutual Savings and Loan Association Building is located at 601- 605 NW 23^rd Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Citizen's State Bank constructed the building as a free-standing suburban branch bank in 1948. Mutual Savings and Loan Association purchased the building in 1957 and initiated a major renovation in 1959 to create the current Modern Movement commercial facade.

The history of the Mutual Savings and Loan Association Building reflects broad development trends in Oklahoma City. Its suburban setting was transitioning during the postwar period from the residential edge of an earlier commercial district to an area of new commercial development associated with the city's northward and westward expansion.

The 1936 City Directory listed the property at 601 NW 23^rd Street as a single-family residence, but by 1945, it was a chiropractor office, likely operating in a converted residential building. Citizen's State Bank organized in 1948 and constructed the bank building at 601-605 NW 23^rd Street that same year. At the time of completion, it was the first free-standing mid-century commercial building on the north side of NW 23^rd Street's 600 block. A 1948 photo shows a residential house on the lot immediately west of the new bank building.

Mutual Savings and Loan Association was organized in 1922 in Oklahoma City. A consortium of local businessmen invested initial financing to provide lending services for new homeowners. The Association operated out of leased space until they purchased the National Bank Building at 200 W. Grand Avenue, now Sheridan Avenue, in 1952. At that time, the Association had five million dollars in assets. Mutual Savings and Loan Association's early 20th-century Classical Revival style building on Grand Avenue represented an earlier property type common to downtown financial institutions. The traditional historically derived architecture emphasized stability, while the downtown business district setting reflected its period of construction before large-scale suburban development.

In 1957, Mutual Savings and Loan Association requested permission from the State Building and Loan Board to open a branch office to augment its downtown Oklahoma City location. The application pointed to the "acute parking problem that exists in downtown Oklahoma City" and the impossibility of providing parking and drive-through services at their downtown location "due to the very high cost of acquiring downtown Oklahoma City real estate". Mutual Savings and Loan Association officials concluded that more than 60 percent of their customers lived in northwest Oklahoma City and would use the new branch.

That same year, they purchased the building at 601-605 NW 23^rd Street from Citizen's State Bank. The real estate purchase contract dated February 20^th, 1957 detailed the arrangements to sell Lots 1, 2, and 3, Block 1, and Lots 5, 6, 29, 30, and 31, Block 2 all in Guernsey Park Place Addition to Mutual Savings and Loan Association for the sum of $185,000. The sale price included "vault doors, night depository, drive-in window equipment, filing cabinets that are built in the wall, teller cages, and other fixtures." The transaction also included two separate parking lots.

By 1959, the Association's assets had tripled its 1952 values to reach twenty million dollars. Mutual Savings and Loan Association contracted with Hurd-Scharlach Construction Co, Inc. on November 7^th, 1958 to remodel the new NW 23^rd Street branch building. Less than six months later, an event on April 21^st, 1959 celebrated the new "Uptown" office grand opening. New ground-floor retail space and a two-story office space replaced the previous open drive-through on the front elevation. Drive-through services were still provided in the rear alley. A new "attractive lobby with elevator to access upstairs and basement" without passing through other offices became a central element in the exterior renovation of the front facade.

The building renovation and expansion distinguished separate spaces for the Savings department, the Title department for home loans, and cashiers; in addition to the bank's office, the building boasted leased office space on the second floor, a leased retail space on the ground level, and a community room in the basement. Advertisements for the new location pointed out the ample parking, the new time and temperature sign, and a range of services including payment of utility bills, Christmas and Vacation savings clubs, home improvement loans, travelers' checks, payroll check cashing, and extended evening hours.

Mutual Savings and Loan Association became Mutual Federal Savings and Loan (Mutual Federal) after approval of a federal charter on March 12^th, 1962. By 1976, Mutual Federal announced its sixth branch, declaring "Oklahoma City is growing and so is Mutual." The NW 23^rd Street branch location remained operational until circa 1983. In 1988 Mutual Federal Savings and Loan merged with Arrowhead Federal Savings and Loan.

The Temple of Faith Full Church occupied the building from 1992 until 1997. The building remained vacant after the church left.

Modern architecture is a broad term that includes trends and styles spanning the 20^th Century. Modern Movement describes a design theory that relies on function to inform design. Modern Movement as a style produces a machine character by embracing contemporary means of construction without ornamentation or historical reference. In Oklahoma City during the mid-twentieth century, new businesses utilized the simplicity and minimalism of the Modern Movement style to express progressive design.

These buildings were characteristically one and two-stories high with flat roofs, fixed windows, and minimal decorative detail. Brick, concrete, metal, wood, stone, and synthetics were common materials.

The original 1948 Citizen's State Bank building expressed a tentative step toward the Modern Movement, while the 1959 renovation fully embraced the aesthetic to create a bold local example. Following a common architectural trend of its time, the 1948 free-standing suburban commercial building was a departure from earlier bank buildings that were typically found in downtown business districts and featured traditional architectural designs. Rejecting the usual Classical Revival style of pre-Depression era bank buildings, Citizens State Bank's new building combined elements of Moderne architecture with classical symmetry to arrive at Streamlined Classicism. The building borrowed horizontal banding from the Moderne to accentuate a corner bay while maintaining symmetrical proportions and regular fenestration on the wings. The simplified ornamentation wrapping the corner element was a minimal adaptation of Moderne's curved forms.

The corner bay contained an entry on the north facade. The horizontal banding above the door created an architectural frame for a Citizen's State Bank sign. A centered window pierced the corner bay's east elevation. The accentuated corner joined the front and east elevations, which were both visible from NW 23^rd Street. Regular, symmetrical fenestration with geometric brick patterns characterized the front and east side elevations.

This version of abstracted classicism, with minimal ornamentation borrowed from the more-daring Moderne style, represented a local institution's attempts to appeal to new depositors. By physically distinguishing its new branch from the traditional fortress-like bank buildings, Citizen's State Bank sought to distance itself from recently failed institutions. Interior features reinforced a more personal and service-oriented experience. Citizen's State Banks illuminated coffered ceiling spanned an open lobby. A visible vault door offered transparency to reassure depositors.

Citizen's State Bank enlarged its building to include drive-through service on the west side of the building circa 1950. A one-story commercial building with multiple storefronts filled the rest of the block by 1955. In 1957, Citizen's State Bank began constructing a new building one-half mile to the west. The new Citizen's State Bank geodesic dome building was a dramatic statement of their modern expansion. Citizen's State Bank sold the 601-605 NW 23^rd Street property to Mutual Savings and Loan Association in 1957.

Mutual Savings and Loan Association expanded and renovated the building at 601-605 NW 23^rd Street in 1959 to create the extant Modern Movement facade. The renovation changed the form, massing, and style of the Citizen's State Bank building. The new exterior replaced the previous regular proportions with a large-scale asymmetry achieved with varying planes. Glazing became part of a wall system rather than a puncture in the exterior. The Modern Movement style building showcased its machine-made materials of brick, concrete, and glass simultaneously as construction components and ornamentation. While the original Citizen's Bank building design took a first step toward a new aesthetic, the Mutual Savings and Loan Association renovation utilized a more dramatic Modern Movement facade to communicate the company's progressive, accessible business model. Modern Movement ideals of function informing design created a building that served to facilitate, and even advertise, the institution's services.

The new front facade's smooth surfaces and simplified shapes used the floating, mid-floor window to great advantage as an architectural canvas branding the building. Early renderings show "MUTUAL" painted on the front glazing. The window also used horizontal mezzanine stairs to frame the vertical elevator shaft at the entry lobby. Visually, that ninety-degree angle added a third dimension to the planar angles on the exterior facade. Functionally, the added central lobby aided circulation between expanded interior service areas.

Design elements borrowed from the retail sector reinforced the postwar bank's more open customer experience. Mutual Savings and Loan Association employed its large sign to amplify the buildings' rectilinear lines and the plate glass windows evoked retail storefronts. The new addition incorporated a separate retail space at ground level, which was leased to a clothing store. The building utilized the Modern Movement's asymmetry and aesthetic newness to express an informal, relaxed service model. An advertisement invited customers "stay in your car or come inside without the bother of dressing for downtown."

Interior treatments reinforced a modern aesthetic that reduced physical barriers between bank employees and customers. The original banking lobby retained an open floor plan under the luminous oval plaster coffered ceiling, which was retained in the 1959 renovation. Low counters and desks without partitions removed physical barriers between customers, loan officers, and cashiers.

Building Description

This one and two-story commercial building occupies a corner lot on the east-west traffic arterial, NW 23^rd Street in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The primary storefront facade faces NW 23^rd Street and abuts contemporaneous commercial buildings of a similar scale that fill the remainder of the block. The rectangular-plan building has a flat roof with a parapet wall. The exterior is clad in blond brick with a concrete belt course and a contrasting red stacked brick wainscoting. Fenestration includes banded fixed plate glass windows on the front facade and hopper windows surrounded by multi-light metal windows on the side elevation. The one-story southeast bay is an original 1948 bank building with an open-plan lobby. Decorative raised brick squares above window openings provide textured ornamentation on otherwise plain exterior surfaces. A circa 1950 addition extended the one-story building two more bays to the west. A 1959 renovation enclosed a drive-through, added a second story, and changed the front facade's form and fenestration. The front elevation uses shifting planes of unadorned wall space and fenestration to articulate interior spatial arrangements. The two-story middle bay has a storefront entry and a projecting fixed metal window that shows the interior two-story volume space. The visible interior vertical elevator and suspended mezzanine walkway form a ninety-degree angle. A metal post commercial sign attaches at the roof and creates a perpendicular plane visible to traffic. The third bay is a solid brick wall with metal canopy above a recessed retail entry. The third bay's slightly recessed horizontal plane and the awning differentiate this bay as a separate interior retail space. Glass display windows line the recessed entry. The building's materials are brick, concrete, metal, and glass. These exposed materials create geometric patterns that serve as minimal decorative elements. The interior is divided into the original bank lobby, downstairs office and retail, second-floor office space, and basement. Primary interior materials include plaster, exposed brick and CMU walls. A rectangular interior lobby has a plaster oval coffered ceiling. Interior doors are wood panel or metal, some with glazing or louvers. Floors are concrete, ceramic tile, and slate tile. Two metal bank vaults are extant.

Detailed Description

601-605 NW 23^rd Street is two and a half miles northwest of downtown Oklahoma City on an east-west thoroughfare connecting the State Capitol complex to western suburbs. The 600 block represents the western edge of four blocks of contiguous commercial buildings dating from the 1920s to the 1950s lining the north, or outbound, side of NW 23^rd. Development on the south side is less cohesive and includes non-historic commercial infill and parking lots. The area was known as Uptown when it developed as part of a larger northwest expansion of suburban development and associated transportation networks.

The one-and-two story commercial and retail buildings along NW 23^rd Street are similar in scale. Most have storefronts facing the street and rear parking. Residential neighborhoods abut on the north and south side. Highway 235 on the east and Classen Road on the west are north-south thoroughfares. This four-block portion of NW 23^rd Street has non-historic streetscape elements coordinated to characterize it as Uptown. The divided boulevard has trees in central medians and regularly spaced streetlamps that match in material and design.

The rectangular-plan building has a concrete slab-on-grade foundation and a built-up roof. The east bay is a single-story with a two-story rear section. The west bay is two-story the full length of the building. The exterior is clad in blond brick with a contrasting red stacked brick wainscoting. The original 1948 building was a smaller rectangle footprint at the corner of NW 23^rd and Dewey Street with the entrance on the shorter side on NW 23^rd Street.

Three bays organize the front facade. The east bay contains the one-story section of the building. The contrasting red stacked brick wainscoting and decorative raised squares match the minimal decorative elements that continue on the east elevation. An offset, recessed entry has a pair of fully glazed aluminum doors and a cantilevered canopy. A metal post sign is anchored to the roof. Raised brick decorative squares around masonry anchors connecting an attached flagpole accentuate the vertical element. The flag pole pierces the horizontal metal signpost. The east bay has a set of storefront windows divided into two vertical lights by metal muntins. All of the windows date to the 1959 renovation. A metal night depository flanks the entry door at pedestrian level.

The central and west bays are two-story. The central bay has a pair of fully glazed aluminum doors next to three historic vertical fixed windows on the ground floor. A projecting concrete rectangular band frames a mid-floor window divided into seven lights with aluminum muntins.

The west bay is slightly recessed from the central bay. Glass display cases on tiled bases line a deeply-recessed first floor entry. A cantilevered, asymmetrical, angled canopy covers the entry. A brick pilaster above the awning on the building's west bay is the only raised or textured element on the otherwise smooth brick wall.

The east elevation facing Dewey Street is divided into three symmetrical bays. Corner bays are differentiated by a slight projection and each contain an off-set single metal window with two vertical and one horizontal light. The central bay has seven large metal windows with geometric casement and hopper windows surrounding a central fixed light. All of the windows are historic and date to 1948. Rowlock brick raised decorative squares above windows in the center bay continue a decorative pattern that ties the east elevation to the front. An entry near the rear is boarded. This was likely a primary entrance as it was closest to the parking areas and corresponds to an interior vestibule that opens to the main lobby space.

The rear elevation is two stories except for a small section at the east end. Exterior material is painted brick. A single, two-light metal window and one nine-light metal window are the only fenestration. A centered rear entry has a pair of metal doors. A storefront entry on the west corner of the rear elevation has a pair of metal doors with glazed panels and a transom. Two metal poles support an asymmetrical angled awning covering the entry.

Interior spaces in the Mutual Savings and Loan Association Building are divided into the banking lobby on the east, the downstairs bank office section in the middle bay, retail space on the west, the second-story office space, and the basement. A central, front entry lobby has historic decorative one-by-one tiles covering the elevator shaft, stairwell, and balcony. The entry lobby ceramic tile floor and light fixture are not historic.

The central entry lobby provides access to all distinct interior spaces. It accesses the main bank lobby on the east and the ground-floor retail and office space through interior doors. An elevator and stairwell provide access to the second-floor office space and the basement. A rear interior staircase in the ground-floor office space provides access to the rear second-floor space and the basement.

The east banking lobby has a historic oval plaster coffered ceiling with can recessed lights. This feature corresponds to the rectangular shape of the room and provides the main decorative element. A historic entry vestibule on the east and a vault door on the south wall are extant in this interior space. A connected office has wood-paneled walls.

The remainder of the interior office space is currently unfinished. Walls are plaster, brick, concrete masonry unit, and tile. Ceilings are plaster or dropped acoustical tile. Interior doors are mostly historic wood panel, some with glazing or louvers. A second-floor, historic office door is metal with vertical fluted glazing. Floors are historic concrete, non-historic vinyl tile, ceramic tile, and slate tile.