Portland Architecture

The Portland-Vancouver BC MindMeld: Is Price Right?

A few of years ago at an AIA conference I met Gordon Price, who was then a city council member in Vancouver, BC and is now the director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University (and whose disembodied head appears at left). He's also a frequent visitor to Portland.

Recently Gordon emailed me with news of a paper he'd written, the title of which seemed intriguing: "Mutual Appreciation: How Portland and Vancouver Exchanged Looks".

The just of his discussion outlines how, as we know, the increasingly tall and thin towers going up in the South Waterfront, northern Pearl and West End are greatly influenced by Vancouver's. What may be less well known to Portlanders, though, is how Vancouver has increasingly begun to embrace the kind of lower-rise buildings more common to the older portions of the revitalized Pearl. Price writes:

Just as Portland was being persuaded of the benefits of the Vancouver style, Vancouver was looking for alternatives to the green-glassed point-and-podium tower. With the redevelopment of the city-owned property in the southeast corner of False Creek as a sustainable neighborhood, a new vision was put forward. In a letter to Council in April, 2004, nine prominent members of the design community argued for a 'town' form of development, "with buildings that are principally low-to mid-rise in height, defining street frontages."

Something, in other words, rather like the Pearl District.

Ecotrust even proposed a re-use of the historic Salt Building as a Natural Capital Centre, specifically modeled after their operation in the Pearl.

In this race to build a new generation of condo towers, has Portland neglected the virtues of the low-rise areas between, say, the north Park Blocks, I-405, Couch and Lovejoy?

As I'm sure Gordon would probably agree, I think a city needs both. Ultimately we want more density here than a city of entirely low-rise buildings could support, and done well a point tower can be magnificent. But there is an intimacy that comes with a more village-like, low-rise setting of two to four-story mixed use buildings. That Vancouver and Portland to some extent have traded styles may be not evidence that one city abandoned the proper path while the other has switched over to finally get it right, but that both cities are completing themselves.

Here Lyons Roar (Actually He'll Just Talk Politely and Show Slides)

On Wednesday evening, Portland State University is hosting a lecture by Canadian architect Brian MacKay-Lyons. Over the last two decades, MacKay-Lyons has built a stellar reputation for creating architecture that utilizes local materials, particularly wood, to craft modern structures built into the landscape that interpret the traditional architecture of Nova Scotia.

According to PSU professor Clive Knights, MacKay-Lyons excels at “the attention given to place response… and the ability to elevate modest means into dramatic spatial experience.”

Knights also forwarded me some quotes by famous architects about MacKay-Lyons, including this one by Pritzker Prize winner Glenn Murcutt:

"The architecture of Brian MacKay-Lyons shows clarity in planning, resulting in forms that are direct, simple, and elegant. The buildings are beautifully sited and crafted. This is an honest, no-nonsense architecture that avoids the fashions of the day. It exhibits that rare quality - authenticity."

The lecture is at 7pm this Wednesday in Lincoln Hall, room 175, and free.

Oh, and don't forget there's also a lecture on Thursday, February 1 by Charles Rose, the Boston architect whose firm is designing an expansion for the Oregon College of Art & Craft. It's scheduled for 6:30pm at The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Avenue, with a $5 suggested donation.

Imagining Katrina's Waterlines In Portland

I wanted to mention a thought-provoking exhibit on view for another couple weeks at the AIA about imagining the Portland area as a Hurricane Katrina victim. “Waterlines” was created and developed by PSU architecture department head Rudy Barton, a New Orleans native, and his son Greg, an architecture student at Tulane University in New Orleans. It helps us imagine a flood in the Portland-Metro region stretching from Sherwood to Camas, or every house in Beaverton replaced with a 28-foot FEMA trailer. Or imagine this: if 1 out of 2 Portlanders were now living elsewhere.

Barton and Barton have included numerous photos in the exhibit, and of course some of them are incredibly sobering. But somehow I feel most affected by simple map showing the flooding in New Orleans spread across our area. I think it's because it's a trigger for contemplating what it might be like if disaster on the level of what New Orleans and the Gulf region happened here. Not only would countless people be killed, hurt or their home and livelihoods taken away, but the physical fabric of the city would be damaged beyond repair. So many of our old trees would be gone, so many buildings.

This may sound unrelated, but as this spirit of contemplating what we have comes up, I'm reminded of my feelings yesterday walking by the Rosefriend Apartments, the beautiful historic building being destroyed by the First Christian Church to make way for the Ladd Tower project - and all in the name of parking. I respect the fact that we've gone through the process, and the owners/developers have every legal right to do what they're doing - namely obliterating terrific Portland architecture. And I respect the efforts of preservationists and co-developer John Carroll to preserve the adjacent Ladd Carriage House, the nice little anachronism sitting next to the very practical and viable Rosefriend. But standing across the street from this ill-fated beauty, I felt like I was going to wretch yesterday. There's even a little used surface parking lot across the street owned by the University Club that's begging for the underground parking the church needs. And still we bring in the *&%^$ wrecking ball? If there are any elected officials reading this (commissioner Leonard?), I implore you to consider some of the behind-the-scenes strong-arming Mayor Katz employed to help make the case for the Ladd Carriage house's rescue. For the rest of you, consider emailing the church here to make your thoughts known.

I bet a lot of architecture lovers in New Orleans wish they had just such a chance to prevent the loss of their historic architecture.