Last Thursday began the Time-Based Art festival, the annual showcase of performing and visual arts put on by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art. While attending the opening ceremonies on the Eastbank Esplanade, I was struck by what an urban celebration TBA is.
The fest commenced with artist David Eckard floating down the Willamette River from Willamette Park on a giant welded-metal contraption that looked like tinker toys gone wild. There were hundreds of us waiting along the Hawthorne Bridge and along the Eastbank Esplanade, and afterward we were led up the street by a Scottish drum regimen and a marching band, parading underneath the Hawthorne Bridge overpass to The Works, the warehouse that BOORA Architects has helped transform into a multifaceted performance space, hangout and eatery.
BOORA has been designing these central hub spaces for TBA for a few years now, and each time the design is a refreshing use of cheap materials to create a temporary work of architecture that nevertheless feels transcendent and very much alive. This year, most of The Works is an old Central Eastside warehouse that BOORA has fashioned with a lantern-like facade using scaffolding, transparent plastic sheeting and lights. It's making something special out of nothing, and it matches the spirit of discovery and creativity that TBA embodies.
Earlier today I also attended a TBA-sponsored discussion called the "Creative Cities Forum", in which a group of panelists discussed the factors and consequences of Portland's being a magnet for young creative professionals (be they artists, designers, ad copywriters) but at the same time among the lowest-ranked cities in America for public per-capita spending on the arts. Ethan Seltzer, director of Portland State University's school of urban studies and planning, was the moderator, joined by Portland city commissioners Sam Adams and Erik Sten as well as a cross section of arts and business community leaders.
The whole creative-class discussion and Portland's place in it has already become a well-worn groove, but a few themes and points stood out for me. One was Sten's push for a real estate tax to be used to fund affordable housing. Gentrification is a problem in Portland, but it's also the kind of problem many cities would love to have. In other words, we're lucky to have people wanting to live in and revitalize old inner-city neighborhoods, but we need to harness some of that to offset the housing for low income people, people of color, families, artists and others.
The problem, Sten says, is that the legislature has so far come down against taxing real estate. So I'd like to address any members of the real estate community reading this: Nobody likes to be taxed, but shouln't the profits and dividends being made during a buidling boom help make sure that we aren't leaving people behind? I'll bet it's also a good investment. Ultimately housing buyers want to be part of rich, diverse communities with a variety of economic and age levels present. If you're spending a couple million on a condo in the Pearl District, you've given up the chance to own a much larger property in the suburbs to be part of an urban life. If that urban experience isn't a culturally diverse one, you're just buying a smaller property for more money.
Also of interest from TBA from an urban/civic perspective is an ongoing interactive exhibit called "Portland Was", in which one is invited to download historic films and shorts related to Portland (from a documentary about city planning from the 1970s to a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring our own Mel Blanc, voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck) and watch them by i-Pod at historically significant building sites all over the city. If nothing else, I recommend visiting the Portland Was website and watching the streaming video of "We Are The City" (under the 'urban renewal' category, #3, in 'Films'), a 1972 documentary about urban renewal projects such as the controversial South Auditorium district project featuring mayor Terry Schrunk. It makes one realize these issues of place-making, planning and community building endure as the generations come and go.
Meanwhile, bravo to PICA for stirring the civic pot with art, discussion and activism.
shouln't the profits and dividends being made during a buidling boom help make sure that we aren't leaving people behind?
hell yes! if realtors/developers/speculators can flip and churn our town's buildings, driving up the cost of local housing for their short-term profit, the city ought at least to get 3% of the sale price, just like the buying and selling realtors do. after all, the city puts a lot more work into the maintenance of our vibrant city than realtors put into staging a living room.
Posted by: mykle | September 11, 2006 at 11:32 PM