Architectural Heritage Center seeks nominees for top Portland buildings list

What are your favorite Portland Buildings? In conjunction with Oregon's 150th birthday, coming up this Valentine's Day, the Architectural Heritage Center invites the public to send them a list of your 10 favorite Portland buildings – "from houses to skyscrapers", they say – by February 1. The AHC will publish its list of the 150 favorite Portland buildings on the anniversary. You can email your picks to Val Ballestrem at valb@VisitAHC.org.

As it happens, I wrote a list of my 10 favorite buildings in a 2001 Willamette Week article reviewing Bart King's Architectural Guidebook to Portland. These might not be my same choices today, but here they are. Or, here they were (in no particular order), with the original comments. All photos except the first one by yours truly: 

Gilbert Building (319 SW Taylor Street)/Architect: Whidden and Lewis, 1893

A beautiful execution of the simple, modest 19th Century brick office building. Romanesque arches lining its upper facade give the Gilbert an understated elegance that has aged gracefully over the last 108 years.

Marilyn Moyer Meditation Chapel (The Grotto, NE 85th Avenue at Sandy Boulevard)/Architect: Thompson Vaivoda and Associates, 1992 

Perched atop a cliff overlooking Portland from The Grotto, this non-denominational chapel is one of the most peaceful enclosures in the city. What's more, the outer glass shell and streamlined shape point our thoughts skyward with a subtle visual poetry.

Portland International Airport Canopy/Architect: Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership (with KPFF Consulting Engineers), 2000 

Yes, it's just a big awning, but is there a more striking panorama of metal and glass in this city? Over two acres long with intricately woven cables holding pedestrian bridges, what was once an unpleasant trek from car to terminal is now a theater for the possibilities of engineering. Reminiscent of Norman Foster's Nicholas Grimshaw's Waterloo Station London or the new Penn Station being built in New York, this is a grand glass entrance to the city.

U.S. Custom House (220 NW Eighth Avenue)/Architect: James Knox Taylor/Edgar M. Lazarus, 1901

Often ignored by drivers and pedestrians on busy Northwest Broadway (not to mention the city as a whole), this elegant French Renaissance-style building is a sleeping giant. It features a massive courtyard and regal, ornate detailing in terra cotta and granite. Occupied by the Army Corps of Engineers, it's merely an old government office building now-but in a city famous for its historic preservation, the right tenant could bring this handsome behemoth alive.

U.S. National Bank Building (321 SW Sixth Avenue)/Architect: A.E. Doyle, 1916

Every city has a bank modeled after the classic Roman temple. That said, this version by A.E. Doyle, possibly the city's greatest architect ever, carries a majesty that transcends its somewhat common manner. From carved bronze doors to a cavernous tri-colored marble interior, genius here is truly in the details. The U.S. National is an ode to the almighty dollar even someone with mere lint in their pockets must stop to appreciate.

Portland Telegram Building (1101 SW Washington Street)/Architect: Rasmussen Grace Co., 1922

Another splendid old building that has fallen into disrepair, the Portland Telegram Building was originally home to a newspaper of the same name-hence the tower, an architectural tradition for this industry. A striking combination of brick and terra cotta that catches the eye of virtually every passerby despite its shabby state, this is where the Mercury or Tribune should have set up shop. 

Coca-Cola Syrup Factory (2710 NE Davis Street)/Architect: James M. Shelton, 1941

Art Deco is arguably the most elegant and handsome visual style of the last century, but it is rare in Portland. While this modest two story complex would pale in comparison to many of the Art Deco buildings in, say, Miami, it is a welcome stylistic divergence in the Rose City, making an irrelevant little office a lot more fun than anything around it for miles. 

Union Bank of California (407 SW Broadway)/Architect: Anshen & Allen, 1969

At first glance this building looks austere and uninviting, its massive concrete facade reminiscent of the daunting monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But as one of Portland's only remnants of the International style of the mid-20th Century, the Bank of California is a reminder of architecture's bygone idealism. This was a vision of the future that didn't take, which makes it all the more interesting in retrospect. 

Portland Building (1120 SW Fifth Avenue)

Architect: Michael Graves, 1984

Consider the listing of this building a statement of sorts. Granted, the architecture here is in many ways downright shabby: It's an unpleasant place to work in and completely uninviting at street level. In other words it's a bad gift with great wrapping. What's more, the Portland Building's legacy has arguably scared us away from real signature architecture for the last seventeen years. Yet in a city that favors the agreeable to the bold, and function to form, here's to architect Michael Graves and his backer on the project, Philip Johnson, for aspiring to something more than merely another banal government office building. If all architecture followed the Portland Building's path, we'd be in big trouble. But thank God at least one structure in this city dared to shake things up. 

Eighth Church of Christ Scientist (3505 NE Imperial Avenue)

Architect: Charles Ertz/Stanton, Boles, Maguire and Church, 1926

Even in a city known for its innovative church design, few houses of worship command a presence with such modest square footage. Fascinatingly geometric yet elegantly curved, the building combines a Mediterranean roof, Romanesque detailing and Byzantine massing. It's a veritable trip around the Old World, yet displays an effortless uniformity.

If I were compiling a new list of favorite buildings today, I can guarantee you the Church of Christ Scientist would not be included. And neither would Doyle's US National Bank, although of course I respect the impressive architecture there. I doubt I'd have the Bank of California on the list, although I still like it. I would, however, still have the Gilbert Buiding on my list, as well as the PDX canopy.

Several buildings not yet built when I wrote that piece would merit consideration, and some were built and have risen in my mind. In the latter case, I've always loved the Portland Plaza, for example. Though seldom discussed now, it was published in Time magazine when initially built, and resembles a Chicago building I adore by one of Mies Van Der Rohe's apprentices.

Among newer work, I'd consider Host's Belmont Lofts, Allied Works Wieden + Kennedy building and 2281 Glisan building, Rick Potestio's Lair Condominiums, BOORA's Metropolitan condos, Thomas Hacker Architects' Woodstock and Hillsdale branch libraries, Angelil/Graham's Portland Aerial Tram, among others. 

I also regret not having any Pietro Belluschi work on my Willamette Week list. The Portland Art Museum would certainly qualify, as would the landmark Equitable Building. But his late churches like the one at University of Portland are wonderful as well. And as for his mentor, A.E. Doyle, I particularly adore Central Library, so much so that I'd probably even take it over Seattle's signature Rem Koolhaas-designed central library, which then-NY Times critic Herbert Muschamp called the best building he'd ever reviewed. I wouldn't go that far complimenting either library, but I think it's a real testament to our library that it's probably more beloved than such an acclaimed building to the north. The Doyle central library here is a modern interpretation of Georgian architecture, which is also one of my favorite historic styles.

What else am I forgetting? Well, there would be what is quite probably my favorite Portland building of all, the Standard Plaza by Skidmore, Owings, Merrill. Not to be confused with the Standard Insurance Center a couple blocks away, which I also like a lot, and which I believe is also by SOM. These midcentury buildings by America's most important large firm of that era aren't eye-popping landmarks, but have the simple elegance of a Donald Judd sculpture.

Naturally, these lists are silly in their apples versus oranges comparisons and listings, but it's fun to argue over what should be there.

Comments

[Mike M]

One of my Portland favorites is the building at the corner of Washington and SW 5th. (Key Bank and Everest College are tenants) I've looked for information in the past and not found much about it's history. It has a lot of modernist qualities that are really nice, but the building looks a bit dirty. I really think that if the building were cleaned up, it could be a real mid-century looker.

[mark]

waterloo station london was designed by grimshaw, not foster

[Armidale Hotels]

Thanks, I'm really curious about that place myself.

[Nikos]

The "best" Portland building is yet to be built, take tha as my confidence in Portland as a city of the future and a very young one.

[Jim Heuer]

Like many of your readers, I look forward to submitting my list of 10 favorites to Val and the folks at the AHC (just settling on 10 is the big challenge). In reading your "favs", I have to comment briefly on your pick of the Multnomah County Library -- certainly on my short list too.

Doyle's design is said to have been strong influenced by the then-new Boston Public Library, one of the seminal products of the celebrated firm of McKim, Mead, and White. The Boston Library was actually based on Italian and French models, including some of the earliest and finest examples of Rennaisance design (the building has a central courtyard based on Italian cloisters dating to the middle ages).

The Boston Public Library was highly thought of by Portland architects. Doyle used it as a model for his library, and his contemporary Emil Schacht took inspiration from it for his 1912 design for the Police Bureau Building on Oak Street.

As to our counterparts in Seattle with their shiny new library, I'd suggest that you travel up there and actually try to do some research in it. Its confusing layout and noisy metal ramps make it much less successful as a working library than our "old fashioned" Doyle building.