Oklahoma Judicial Center

The original Historical Society Building is a three-story structure with a full basement. The exterior features a facade of Indiana limestone with the base and steps composed of Georgia granite designed in Classical Revival style. The building is elevated six feet above Lincoln Blvd. which runs in front of the main entrance. Ten two-story tapered columns with Ionic capitals are aligned along the front facade between two square limestone end columns. The columns uphold an entablature inscribed with Oklahoma Historical Society in the center with three wreathes, symbolic of academic buildings, on each side. Above these along the lower edge of the cornice are dentils combined with egg and dart moulding as part of a frieze that includes lion masks. Atop the entablature lies the antefix featuring floral anthemions, one of the building's common motifs.[5]^: 2

A shallow porch with a beamed ceiling lies behind the Ionic columns. A porch rail is composed of short stone balustrades connecting the columns. Opposite the stairs leading to the porch are two centrally placed bronze entrance doors with a decorative iron grille clerestory. Alongside the entrance are vertical stone relief panels supporting an entablature and antefix resembling those on the front facade. Floral medallions alternate with vertebrate leaf bands to decorate the relief panels. From the porch, the granite steps descend in two wide flights separated by a small brick plaza. Three-dimensional volutes are on each side of the lower flight.[5]^: 2

Bays extend from the north and south ends of the building. The single, steel casement windows on the first and second floors alternate with plain stone pilasters along all elevations. On the front elevation, an intricate medallion design is located above first floor windows while second floor windows are adorned above with a scrolling foliage design. Windows on the side elevations are not decorated. Around the building is a belt course composed of a single row of dentils. On the front facade, each wing holds secondary entrances designed as simpler versions of the main entrance. These entrances are topped with simple entablatures with dentils and have windows on each side with exterior grilles resembling the clerestory over the main entrance. Light fixtures on each side of the secondary entrances complement the grilles and anthemions. The building's cornerstone is located on the northwest corner. The rear facade of the original building holds multi-pane windows larger than those along the other elevations.[5]^: 3

A dominant interior feature of the Historical Society Building is the asymmetric central marble staircase and an intricate iron balustrade. The interior holds plaster walls decorated with elaborate friezes and parquet floors of marble, oak, and walnut. The halls of each of the unique floors are adorned with plaster pilasters with elaborate capitals and decorative friezes.[5]^: 3 These long corridors are laid with patterned marble with borders. The marble is added to the walls approximately a foot high as floor molding. The marble stairs have marble wainscotting on all levels. The stairway's iron balustrade incorporates a scrolling foliage design and a walnut banister. This foliage design at every level wraps a marble newel post. Despite the building's Neoclassical style, Art Deco light fixtures are employed at all levels.[5]^: 4 Seventeen- by seventeen-foot light courts illuminate the halls and service rooms of the upper floors and the former first floor library room.[5]^: 5

The basement contains beamed, coffered ceilings pronounced with dentils and a repeated vertical anthemion pattern. This level also is accented with intricate friezes, marble floors, and oak doors holding leaded oval glass and leaded clerestories. Located within the basement is a 400-seat auditorium including a stage decorated with swags and a false entablature, walls adorned with classical motifs, and large Art Deco chandeliers.[5]^: 4

Within the bronze main entrance doors are a second pair of brass-trimmed wooden doors with a stained glass Art Deco clerestory. In between these two door sets is a small entry vestibule laid with Tennessee and Tavernelle marble floors. The vestibule includes a frieze decorated with a scrolling foliage design and dentils. On the first floor between the vestibule and the central stairway is a reception area topped with an arched, vaulted ceiling. The pilastered first floor hallway features a frieze incorporating a wavescroll.[5]^: 4

On the second floor, the hall has beamed ceilings and pilasters capped with flattened Corinthian capitals. This floor has the most elaborate frieze composed of plaster festoons with a ribbon-wrapped design of leaves and flowers. This hallway is also adorned with egg and dart molding, dentils, and a secondary Art Deco design.[5]^: 4

The third floor hallway holds a plain beamed ceiling and pilasters with Corinthian capitals similar to those on the second floor. A special feature of the third floor is the wall paintings of eight Native American figures, the works by Kiowa artists Monroe Tsatoke and Spencer Asah, funded in the 1930s by the Civil Works Administration. The artists, members of the Kiowa Six, contributed their art to several state and federal buildings in Oklahoma. The third floor was originally constructed to be utilized as gallery space with the ceilings, holding skylights, curved to meet the walls. A small metal staircase on the south end of the hall climbs upward toward mechanical space.[5]^: 4–5

The front lawn of the building near the main entrance stairway holds a replica of the Liberty Bell, a cannon, and the architectural relic of a previously demolished downtown building.[5]^: 2–3 To the north of the original building is the Oklahoma American Legion War Memorial. This memorial features an eternal flame and four separate sculptures honoring veterans of World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.