Newly discovered early-career Pietro Belluschi buildings at Mt. Hood
Farr has authenticated a series of plans out of AE Doyle's office (Doyle of course was a Portland architecture legend himself, responsible for Central Library, the Meier & Frank building, and much more) for some simple camp buildings on the way to Mt. Hood near Sandy, used principally by girl scout troupes over the years.
According to Farr, for Camp Namanu Belluschi designed four structures, which she descibrs as "woodsy, appropriate to the woods and trees and terrain." The designs came just after Belluschi arrived in Portland from Italy. "They weren't given Job Numbers, as I have the entire catalogue of Doyle and Belluschi's office work, and there is only one mention of Camp Fire in the oldest of the list of works," Farr says. "But even in 1927-29, and in the 1930s Belluschi was already designing very simple buildings similar to the barns he loved so much. And even when he was designing some classical revival things for Doyle's office, he designed these buildings and they are the beginning of the Northwest Style, earlier than his houses and churches.
I will post photographs of the buildings as they become available, but you can also see the work in Farr's presentation tonight. Now more than ever I can say, "Way to go, Libby!"
I've been to Namamu a couple times, many years back, on volunteer maintenance trips with my family. It's a beautiful place. Don't remember the buildings too well, except that they were right for the place.
There's some good pictures of the restoration of one of the camp's building on portlandcampfire.org's website: Uncle Toby's Photo Gallery. I'd guess this is one of Belluschi's buildings. It's big...the building's roof extends to cover spacious walkways on the building's perimeter. Simple, graceful, beautiful.
Posted by: ws | November 12, 2008 at 11:54 AM