Designed and built in 1965 in Heber Springs, Arkansas, by E. Fay Jones, the Shaheen-Goodfellow Weekend Cottage was originally built as a gettaway cottage for landscape architects Bob Shaheen and Curt Goodfellow. Also known as Stoneflower due to the slim upper-story part of the house that appears to grow out of the stone base, the cottage was designed to be budget-friendly while staying unique. This lead Jones to develop an idea for supporting the ceiling by intersecting wooden beams. This method gave the house its iconic, vertically-focused appearance.

The Pinecote Pavilion was designed by E. Fay in Jones in 1985 and is located in Picayune, Mississippi. The pavilion utilizes an exposed light wood frame system, allowing every architectural element to be exposed inside and out, and was designed to be a symmetrical shed. The structure was built entirely out of indigenous material and native pine while resting atop a base of earth-toned brick. These elements combined with the vertical columns that lead to a thin, sprawling roof help the structure mimic the surrounding theme of nature; tall trees and the wings of birds.

Designed and built by E. Fay Jones in 1988, the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel is considered to be the sister to the Thorn Crown Chapel which was also designed by Fay almost a decade earlier. The chapel was built mainly out of steel and glass on a hill overlooking Lake Norwood in Bella Vista, Arkansas. Again, Fay drew most of his inspiration from gothic style architecture with 15 main arches that vault 50 ft. into the sky.

The Thorn Crown Chapel is primarily a wood and glass chapel nestled in the Ozark Mountains. Designed and built by E. Fay Jones in 1980 for Jim Reed, a retired school teacher who wanted a chapel for his friends, families, and visitors to the Ozarks to become closer to God. The ceiling consists of a network of crisscrossing pine wood beams with the outer facades being mainly composed of glass panels to allow occupants a full view of the surrounding scenery from inside the chapel. Jones drew his inspiration of the chapel from the gothic Chapel of Paris.

Bizzell Library has always stood out to me as the heart of OU’s campus. I remember touring the campus my senior of high school and when we toured the inside of the library, I distinctly remember thinking “this is where I want to go to college”. The Cherokee Gothic style architecture always reminded me of Gothic style buildings that I had seen growing up and it’s always left me with a sense of grandeur every time I pass it on campus.

I visited Austria in 2011 and one experience that stood out to me in particular is Hohensalzburg Castle. Built on the cliffs overlooking the city of Salzburg, this imposing structure stands out above the city and is backdropped by Austria’s mountainscape. While built for a defensive purpose, I was surprised by how beautiful the fortress was especially with the image I had originally had in my head of castles should look in that I always thought of a castle being a large, crude, and grey bricked behemoth.

I visited the Notre-Dame de Paris in 2009 during a tour of France with People to People. At the time, something that really struck me is just how massive the cathedral is in person. I remember being curious how the builders were able to achieve the sharp corners and intricacies in the building’s façade. Looking back now, I have a much better appreciation for this magnificent structure since the fire that destroyed a large portion of it in 2019.

I visited the Tower of Pisa in 2009 during a tour of Europe with People to People. One of the first things that I remember when seeing is it that I was fascinated that it had such a dramatic lean to it. I appreciated the fact that such a beautiful structure was constructed so long ago by people using tools and methods that we would consider almost primitive today.