From the Last 50 in 150

At last week's Pecha Kucha night at the Ace Hotel Cleaners, I got talking with a local architect about today's new crop of buildings and the long-term outlook there will be for this era's architecture. He posed to me something along these lines: "I'm not sure if any of the buildings here from the last 50 years will still be here in 150 years."

There's a lot of ways you could look at such a statement. Maybe it means that with green building and global warming taking off, in a century and a half so much will have changed about the physical, thermal and electrical aspects of architecture that there won't be a place for many of today's works to endure. Maybe it means that only the most exceptional buildings from the past survive for a century or more, because to go through the extra headaches and cost of preserving and restoring them, they have to resonate enough to be really worth it. Or, maybe it's just a cynical way of saying nothing we've built in Portland in the last half-century (since about 1957 if you're playing at home) is significant enough architecturally to merit being preserved.

Suffice to say, Portland of 1857 looks scarcely anything like it does today. You'd really have to struggle to think of many or any buildings predating the Civil War (the actual one, not the local football game) that still have a presence here. Even the Pioneer Courthouse only dates back to 1875.

Perhaps you could argue that a few big local landmarks made in the last 50 will endure: Pioneer Courthouse Square, Big Pink. In cities with much longer histories than Portland, there are of course many buildings older than 150 years. Maybe the fact that we're more of an established semi-large metropolitan city now would give more buildings from 1957-2007 a chance to be here in 2157.

I think the square stands the best chance. There are other structures predating the last 50 years, like the Portland Art Museum or the Benson Hotel that you'd think, barring massive earthquake, would continue on almost indefinitely. And I just have this gut feeling that someday Memorial Coliseum will still be standing after the Rose Garden has been torn down. But recent buildings of the last 10 or 20 years? Hmm. Even the really exceptional ones don't always endure. Maybe OHSU's Center for Health and Healing at the base of the tram. Or the tram itself. Maybe the Wieden + Kennedy building, or 2281 Glisan, or one of Thomas Hacker's libraries. Or this new condo tower that Skylab has planned.

I think the architect who made that statement about the last 50 and 150 ahead was talking more strictly about the aesthetics of buildings. Is there anything so handsome people will fight fore it? Will people fight for, say, Big Pink a hundred years from now?

Of course with a question like this, anybody who thinks they really know is only fooling themselves. Who knows what context might exist in a century and a half that we could never dream of today? However, this is really an exercise in considering what architecture of our own past generation or two or three - the city's growth over the last five decades - has produced anything that is exceptional and resonant and relevant enough to transcend the limits of style, use and viability.

One would like to think there's a renaissance beginning for Portland in our time, and that, like Amsterdam or other great cities, the built reflection of that will be something future generations want to preserve. But then again, they probably thought back in the 60s and 70s that the Brutalist concrete behemoths and freeways they were building would be awed at a century later. And then there's a local case like the phrase "Portland's Eiffel Tower", which a hopeful mayor bestowed upon a Michael Graves building here that has not at all stood the test of time well.

So with that confidence in mind, who's brave enough among us to venture a guess about the last 50 in 150?

Comments

[dave]

50 years from now one of the few Portland buildings that will still be considered significant is "Portland's Eiffel Tower," the Portland Building.

At least it's interesting.

[Carlo]

I agree with Dave. I drove across the Hawthorne Bridge the other day, where you get a great view of the Portland Building just after you cross the river, and thought, Wow, that's a memorable building. I could never figure out why so many Portlanders seem to resent that building so much -- except that it seems to be a particular quirk of the Portland character that people seem to resent whenever something is successful. And that is a successful building. I really have no idea what you mean, Brian, when you say that it "has not at all stood the test of time well." I mean, has it even had time yet to stand the test of time? It's barely two decades old.

[Nikos]

The fact that you are even wondering if anything built in the last 50 years will stand the test of another 100 years, is telling. I find this exercise futile.All one can do is create for their time and let history judge. There is no way to predict the future in Art or Science and Technology (or taste or pretty much anything.)
Speaking of the Eiffel Tower, it was deemed a monstrosity in its time (in pretty pretty Paris) but with the benefit of hindsight it is tres romantique, n'est pas?
The problem in my opinion is this: Portland should be anxious and bursting at the seams to create new architecture, a confident city of the future, young and full of ideas. Instead it is an insecure and inward looking, preservation and regulation obcessed architectural canvas. Very succesful in affording a very walkable, human scale core, cozy and even pleasant. But a place of high aspiration, pizzaz, high concept, experimentation, daring, it is not. That is, by the way, incongruent with the fact of Portland as a happening place in food, independent music and design in general. Maybe architecture will follow the general trendiness in the next 20-30 years, especially when more people and perhaps more money flows in.
By the way, the greatest urban design success of Portland is the emergence of the Pearl district, a Phoenix rising from blighted railroad yards and derelict warehouses.
As for the Big Pink, I propose we rename it the Pink, it needs about 30-40 more stories to become Big.

[kolas]

As for the portland building.. i don't think it should not last another day! If the graves building is memorable, it is all for for the wrong reasons.. It is symbolic of faux architecture, egocentric, does not care about the users (lack of daylighting), no relationship to it's context..materials (tile) that should only be used in bathrooms..

Unfrortunately, skilss, tecnology and economics (cost of labor and materials, bottom line) changed how things are built. Most of the cheaply made housing projects in the pearl will not make it to 50yrs.

[Craig]

Its all about the ability to be re-used. The pearl was built in a classic urban way. Most of those buildings can be re-used for other purposes as the trends of time demand. The Graves building can't because it's all form no function. Unless a building is an absolute classic, function will out live form. The Seattle Library went all out to be a classic, but the function of that building is so bizarre that if the building doesn't land the iconic reputation is simply won't be reused and will be replaced. The risk of really going for an iconic work of architecture is much higher 50 years down the road when a building looks for a second life.

[zilfondel]

Libby, I disagree. I think a lot of our built environment will remain 100 or even 200 years from now - just see how attached Portlanders are to 'historic' homes already.

Trying to tie the lack of buildings predating 1857 in Portland to the conclusion that the 'time limit' is 150 years is also absurd, as the population of the Portland Metro region during that time has increased from about 1,000 people to 2.25 MILLION.

Of course there weren't that many buildings back then - hardly anyone lived here! However, you can find farmhouses in the valley that are that old.

You've been to Amsterdam, right? Many of those houses date back to the 16th century - and have a wood frame. The house I live in right now on Stark street is 97 years old. It has been upgraded (although rather poorly), but a lo of the neighboring houses are between 70 and 100 years old.

Larger buildings can also be upgraded - throw a new facade on it, reinforce the columns, add a seismic refit and throw on a couple extra floors - its all possible. In the future, however, we are probably even more likely to preserve existing buildings - but for a couple of reasons:

-less disruption of the built environment. Half of downtown is already a giant construction pit.

-it is a 'greener' option to not tear down. Reusing is the best environmentally sustainable act - and if most buildings are constructed on a fairly standardized floor plan, ceiling height, and column spacing, they should offer flexibility for renovation in the future (as opposed to a hospital, which has very stringent and specialized requirements these days).

-people don't like the architecture on their street to change. See definition of "NIMBY." Expect most Victorian homes in Portland to stay put!

I think developers are also going to find more value in historic architecture and seek to reuse them in projects - as they offer unique opportunities to offer unique products (historic renovated building space) that you can't build new.

[Bo]

I don't know how relevant the following thoughts are, but they came to mind...

One form in which architecture survives the test of time is through revivals - the cyclical re-discovery of certain valued qualities often overlooked for a while.

From Rejuvenation, where I sit, both revivals and "standing the test of time" have special meaning.

Revivals seem to (arguably) come about through a unique intersection of cultural values and romance. To this end, it is intriguing to ask what "romance" might be perceived in today's buildings by someone a century and a half from now?

One current observation about revivals. Most of the revivals we've seen in the last 30-40 years - Victorian in the 1970s and 1980s, Arts & Crafts in the 1990s and 2000s - have been at least a generation removed. I.e., the interest is in a style/era that is older than living memory.

Interestingly, the current revival of interest in midcentury modern breaks this pattern - many enthusiasts can actually remember a childhood in these homes when they were new! And some of the architects working at the time are still living today.

If the distance between original styles and their revivals keeps collapsing, "'70s condo" is just around the corner - and Michael Graves could be marketing revivals of his teapots before they even go out of production from the first time around.

My vote for the Portland building most likely to inspire awe and romance in 150 years is the Forestry Building at the Lewis & Clark Expo (it will be reconstructed for the 2105 fair bicentennial)....

[Sean Casey]

I think Dave and Carlo are correct regarding the Portland Building. Personally, I find the interior a bit stuffy and claustraphobic, however the exterior is playful, when compared to the other interchangable curtain-wall buildings downtown. And why shouldn't the building be a tad egocentric? Isn't that what people want from a name-brand architect? Even "Portlandia" somehow escaped the design-by-committee fate thats reduced so much public art to being abstract and "interpretive". I'll take that, rather than another piece of "plop art".

And I think Dave is right about the reuse part of the equation. Neighborhoods and urban areas go through cycles. The Pearl district may one day become a ghetto. If that happens, do anyone think those buildings will hold up to the ravages of a severe recession or depression? Somehow I find it hard to believe those buildings could handle the abuse. Unlike the townhouses in New York, where over many generations the rich/middle-class/poor than rich again occupied these dwellings, still standing a hundred years later. I dont think those tin studs and sheetrock are really built to last. They're built to sell. Once sold, the builders and developers could care less even twenty years down the road.

I lived near Union Station from 1999 to 2002. Not long after the Lovejoy ramp was demolished I remember standing roughly around NW 13th one clear night and maveling at the flatness of the area. There seemed to be nothing standing between Glisan and the 405 bridge. The calm before the storm.

What will probably remain the longest are the parks, protected by whatever development is around it. What NY buildings go back further than Central Park?

Thanks for allowing me to comment.

[ws]

Also thumbs up for the Portland Building for the extraordinarily upbeat contribution it makes to Portland's conservatively fitted cityscape. Will there be a demand for its continued presence throughout the next 150 years? I'm not sure. It's easier for me to think about whether NYC's Chrysler Building and the Empire State will be here that long. I'd be inclined to think yes.

I think materials have a lot to do with the fact that some buildings have been around for so long. It's amazing what can be done with old buildings made of or surfaced with stone to update and make them new again. It's as though they were made to live forever. Will glass and steel structures be able to pull this trick off 100 years from now?

Height is a factor too though. As buildings get taller, it seems to me that the likelihood they'll stand a greater test of time increases. This is what occurred to me about the NYC World Trade towers. If the terrorists hadn't plowed into them, what kind of demo/rebuild rationale would have been required to bring down those immense masses of materials? Aside from an earthquake, they might have stood forever.

[pdx2m2]

The Hatfield Courthouse will be standing in 100 years.