Portland Architecture

Walking a Fine Rose Garden Sponsor Line

In mid-December it was announced that the Rose Garden will make available renaming rights to a corporate sponsor. It was very sad news, but not surprising given that most major sports teams play in arenas and stadiums with corporate sponsor names.

I think there's a fine line here that's important. I prefer it when a sponsor name is combined with the retained original game.

Take the college bowl games being played this week. We know that the Fiesta Bowl is officially called the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl", but that the Tostitos brand doesn't comprise the identity completely. Then there's "The Rose Bowl Game Presented by AT&T": no argument whatsoever about the people in Pasadena hitching a sponsor to their otherwise intact name. But just before writing this post, I happened to turn on ESPN during the Meineke Car Care Bowl. And my first thought was, where the hell is that? And I'm a huge college football fan--I even wrote a book about it. If I can't remember anything about the identity of the Meineke Car Care Bowl other than who played in it, that's a huge missed opportunity for the city of Charlotte, which my cable-TV info button told me is the host, and for the bowl itself.

So let's say, just for example, that State Farm Insurance bought the Rose Garden sponsor naming rights. I think it'd be better for everyone involved, including State Farm, if it were called the State Farm Rose Garden rather than more common selections like the State Farm Garden, State Farm Center, State Farm Arena, etc.

The Rose Garden is virtually no one's favorite architecturally. Most of us would agree that the old Memorial Coliseum next door is a far more compelling design. (The mid-century, by the way, had a lot of places with names like this: Veterans Memorial Stadium, War Memorial Stadium. Veterans Stadium.) But the name is something they really got right. Times change, and the Blazers are no longer willing to make the extra financial sacrifice to maintain that added bit of integrity when virtually everyone else has taken the sponsor-name plunge.

However, I think when places allow their arenas and stadiums and events to be entirely overtaken by sponsor names, they give up not just that sense of integrity, but also a sense of place and identity that would have otherwise been as valuable to the sponsor as to the rest of us. It's natural for a corporation to want to attach its brand to the Rose Garden, especially now that the Blazers seem to be so dramatically on the rise. But a sponsor agreement should be a partnership, no a usurpation.

You can ask people all over the country what city the Rose Garden is in, and they'll answer correctly that it's Portland. That has immeasurable value to the city and the arena itself. It's not as tangible as the checks for millions of dollars they'll get from a sponsor. But why does it necessarily have to be one or the other? Altough the people of Portland don't own the Rose Garden, the city is diminished by losing that name. Imagine if people visiting Pasadena found that the Rose Bowl was called the AT&T Bowl? I probably wouldn't have had my picture taken outside, like I did on January 2, 1995 to see Oregon play there.

It probably sounds like I'm splitting hairs. But as someone who has always really, really hated the proliferation of sponsor-named stadiums, this is my attempt to meet business realities half-way.

Incidentally, when a Portland Business Journal poll on December 21 asked, "Should the Rose Garden be named after a corporate sponsor?", 35 percent said "Yes: Why not? Other teams are doing it, and the Blazers could use the money." 18 percent said, "Yes, but only if the corporation is based in Oregon." 45 percent said, "No way: Keep Portland weird."

I'd definitely agree with the latter 45 percent, but there needs to be a middle ground between the less and less likely chance of keeping a sponsor away and having one swallow the Rose Garden's identity whole.

Reaching For a Bad Move: Housing Nonprofit Threatens Classic Interstate Motel Sign (Updated)

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to call North Interstate Avenue Portland's version of Route 66, the classic mid-20th Century motorway that has inspired many a romantic ode and cable TV documentary. It's not to say this is the open road, which was part of Route 66's mystique. But the other half of Sixty-Sixiana is the style of its accompanying motor hotels.

Local filmmaker/artist Matt McCormick devoted half of his aclaimed show earlier this year at Elizabeth Leach Gallery to a slideshow of old motel signs in the southwest, and seeing the succession of them, with names conjuring the space age, tropical motifs, or cowboy mythology, they seemed like western America's own version of Easter Island statues.

I've rarely heard anyone in Portland speak specifically to the minor treasure of old motel and other business signs. In almost every case they aren't preserved. We saw it recently with the old Cornford's market sign (lots of big painted fruit) along Martin Luther King Boulevard near the Morrison Bridge terminus. But I think Interstate is really the strongest example of signs from a particular era, style, and building type (motels) being congregated in a particular area.

In today's Oregonian, Michael Bales reported that Reach Community Development, which is demolishing the former Crown Motel on Interstate to build an affordable housing complex--certainly an understandable and worthy endeavor in and of itself--also plans to demolish the iconic sign out front, with a neon crown reading "Crown" and a giant neon sword interlocking the word MOTEL. Bales quotes Riad Sahli, housing project manager from Reach, as saying the old sign doesn't fit the design of the new complex.

As architect Stuart Emmons of Emmons Architects (who authored a series of redevelopment planning options for the Portland Development Commission and the Bureau of Planning) put it in a tersely worded mass email that I and several other people in media and local goverment received today, if this wonderful kitschy old relic of the early post-World War II era doesn't fit, that's the fault of the new design, not the sign. Why not design an affordable housing complex that does everything it otherwise would in terms of fulfilling program and meeting functional needs, but also has a stylistic element recalling old motor hotels? It'd be a no brainer to name the new project Crown Condos, or Crown Apartments, or whatever. The MOTEL portion of the sign could perhaps be changed to fit the new owners, like the White Stag sign in old town was several years ago changed to Made In Oregon when the latter moved into the building.

Making it even worse is that Reach is a nonprofit. It'd be one thing if a private developer was dumb enough to discard a branding opportunity being handed over on a silver platter in favor of some other profit-motive-driven decision. But for goodness sake, Reach even has "Community Development" as part of its name. To me that includes not letting local pieces of our built history--which would not get in the way of the programmatic needs of their new, otherwise admirable affordable housing project--be trampled on their watch, and on their land.

TriMet chose Reach for the five-story project to help spur use of the Interstate MAX line. I can't help but think of the investment the agency made in public art along the line, and how these old motel signs are every bit as unique and pleasing to the public - arguably more. I mean, very very little contemporary public art seems to achieve widespread appeal. But people love these old motel signs. Midcentury modern is even super hot stylistically right now.

It's too early to start getting angry at Reach, because there's still lots of time for them to reverse their decision and come to their senses. Like I said, this is not just something they should feel compelled to do because of public pressure. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to preserve what's right in front of them in a way that scores big points with the public. Might some nice, glowing PR for this little nonprofit be nice? Hell, you could even replace MOTEL on the old sign with REACH. Even an egotistical move like that would be far better than destroying and/or removing it. Come on, Reach, please don't be stupid, and please don't turn an opportunity into a reason for people to advocate that you not get the next such development contract that comes around.

Meanwhile, I think this is more than enough reason to take more seriously the remaining Interstate motel signs and figure out how to preserve them, whether that's through private means, public, or a combination of both.

Actually driving down this one-time highway, Interstate Avenue, now that the MAX line is there can be very aggravating. I mean, one lane in each direction? I love the train, but sure wish the design could have been done to preserve a very much needed second lane in each direction on this major arterial local avenue. But at least we still have the chance to make something artful and historically preserved for future generations out of these signs.

Affordable housing along a light rail line is something we should all be cheering for. Let's keep it that way by preserving the Crown sign and all its remaining neon siblings. (Incidentally, my personal favorite is the Palms motel sign. I even have a silscreened artwork by Robert Mars of it hanging on my kitchen.) If not Easter Island monoliths, maybe you could say these are the man-made equivalents of old growth timbers. Either way, I think plenty of people in town would be just as happy to hug these hunks of rusty aluminum.

UPDATE 12/27/07: At a reader's suggestion, I am adding to this original post the comments of a couple different relevant government people as well as the architect involved. This is somewhat of an experiment, because I'm not completely sure about elevating their comments in this way over those of others participating in the dialog. We'll see...

"As the architect of the new affordble housing project, I love the Interstate signs and we could easily incorporate the sign into the design of the building and would be happy to do it if it made sense. However the project will house very low income families with children. REACH beleives that the existing crown motel sign with its large sword plus its association with the motel that has been a place of illicit activity and a nuisance to the neighbors for many years is an innappropriate label for poor children. REACH has been working very hard to find another business or group who wants to preserve the sign and is willing to help in any way, but so far have found no takers. They are still trying."

--Posted by: Kurt Schultz, SERA Architects

"I am TriMet's project manager for the Crown Motel demolition. We have specified in the demolition contract that the sign is to remain intact. This has always been the case, and there are no plans by TriMet to demolish this sign. I have been told that there is a neighborhood group working to find a new home for this sign."

--Posted by: Nick Stewart

"We do in fact have two areas in the City of Portland where we've identified signs as playing a particular role in linking to a signficant past. These areas - the Broadway area through downtown, and Chinatown - are replete with specific regulation which support retention of particular sign types, and encourage future signs to be similarly scaled and graphically adventurous."

"As the interstate area is undergoing a revisitation of some of its zoning and associated design guidelines, there's an intent and opportunity to do the same for the sign ensemble being discussed here."

--Posted by: Jeff Joslin , Land Use Manager, Bureau of Development Services

I would like to clarify that it has never been REACH’s intent to demolish the neon sign.  We were selected by Tri Met to redevelop the existing Crown Motel property into a new mixed use affordable housing project. We worked very closely with the neighborhood on the design of the building, and have earned their approval for the project.  Early on, we heard from a small group of neighbors expressing concern over the sign and a wish to see it preserved.  Since then, we have worked trying to find a new home for the sign.

Our position has been and continues to be that we are happy and willing to work with any interested party to find an appropriate home for the sign.  There are a number of legitimate reasons the sign cannot be reused on this site, including:

• The budget for the project does not allow for the sign to be reused on the current site.  The economics of deal are already stressed and reusing the sign would likely result in loss of building space, meaning less affordable housing for low-income families (a high public policy priority), and less density (a requirement of the RFP).   
• The sign is in bad condition and will require significant restoration budget which isn’t available to us.
• The motel and the sign are associated with crime. Our concern is not so much that the sword and crown symbolize violence, but contextually, that the sign is a ponderous reminder of the drug dealing, prostitution, and other criminal activity that has occurred on that site over the past several decades. By eliminating the sign from the project, the stigma of the motel is diminished.

I’m glad the recent press has helped get word out to a larger audience we weren’t previously reaching, including the Atomic Age Alliance.  We look forward to working with you to salvage this piece of Portland’s history – please keep me apprised of any ideas your group generates and keep in mind that demolition of the motel is scheduled to begin towards the end of February or early March.

Riad Sahli
Housing Project Manager, REACH CDC

No Overlooking SERA's NewInterstate Condo

Being that it’s the first new condo infill project along the Interstate Avenue corridor with its still relatively newfangled MAX line, The Overlook probably will not (despite its name) fail to be noticed. If the renderings and the look of it during late-period construction provide an accurate picture, the project -- situated next to the St. Stanislaus Catholic church (they put on the wonderful Polish Festival each September), and developed by one of its members -- also seems to have the potential to be some very nice architecture.

Speaking about The Overlook by email, Kurt Schultz of SERA Architects, the firm behind the project, emphasized that sales prices had to be kept affordable for entry-level buyers, who comprised The Overlook’s target demographic. He also said the design sought to capture the spirit of Interstate Avenue, which has a handful of surviving mid-century modern old motor hotels that survive today, several decades after Interstate 5’s construction rendered this onetime main highway into a regular old city street. (And a very, very slow one to drive now if you choose a car over MAX.) Schultz also mentioned the influence of housing projects in Switzerland by the likes of Baumshlager and Eberle: very crisp, boxy minimalist stuff. (John Echlin, a leading principal at SERA, worked previously in Switzerland, but apparently isn't neutral about the design aesthetic there.)

The Overlook project is composed of a floating ‘box’ containing the residential units with the units facing north and south, “with extensive glazing for optimal daylighting and more controlled openings on the east and west facing an alley and Interstate,” the architect added.

Material wise, SERA is using screen grilles (and balcony railings) made out of colored Trex boards on the upper floors, “for longevity and sustainability to filter the light and protect private balconies from the noise of Interstate, which creates interesting degrees of solid and filtered voids on the east and west sides.” Trex is a composite of wood and plastic usually used in decking. The screens are not on the building in the photos here that I took, but apparently will be soon. The ground floor is clad in vertical standing seam metal wall panels.

The ground floor will have a retail space on one corner and the condo’s lobby on the other. Each glazed corner entry is set back significantly to accentuate the sense that the three stories above are floating from the rest of the mass.

Although the project is not seeking LEED certification, SERA designed it to meet the standards of a LEED ‘Silver’ building.

The dedication of the project was actually last week, but The Overlook is actually set to be completed next year.

So will this project be remembered as a tipping point for condo-building on Interstate, or will the somewhat stagnant economy make it a stand-alone building for awhile, like Cascadian Court in the Lloyd District? Either way, I’m cautiously very encouraged by what I see of the building coming together. Some of the material I saw on the back of the building looked a little weird at first glance, like something synthetic trying to look natural. But overall this seems very handsome, particularly for a project on a tight budget.

Locating the Modern City

A few days ago, in a recent post, I made a reference to Portland being more “European” in its urban planning and its more pedestrian and transit-oriented focus. A reader soon commented that this tendency of characterizing Portland this way is lazy, that not all European cities make such perfect role models, and that each city is different. And they of course were right.

This got me thinking about a book I received a press copy of a few months ago called Urban Imaginaries: Locating The Modern City, edited by Thomas Bender and Alev Cinar.

“For millennia,” they write, “the city stood out against the landscape, walled and compact. This concept of the city was long accepted as adequate for characterizing the urban experience. However, the nature of the city, both real and imagined, has always been more permeable than this model reveals.”

When you start into the ten essays in Urban Imaginaries, the writing can be pretty dry and academic. But the larger point is a relevant one: that grasping and defining and describing the city, as if there is one uber-city template, can easily flounder. That’s true not just when describing a city like Portland versus other cities, but also in the context of itself and the different levels of city, suburb and rural existing within. It also serves as a reminder that there are many, many cities outside of Europe to which we can look for inspiration. (Japan, anyone?)

“There is not even a settled name for the agglomerations of populations on all continents that are larger than any point in history,” Bender says in his conclusion. “Not only are they more extensive than could have been imagined as recently as a half century ago, but they are also increasingly multi-nodal metropolitan regions, with a variety of trans-local connections…such apparent incoherence raises the question of whether there is in fact either a city or a city culture.”

In other words, does someone living in the close-in central city of Portland have more in common with a Beaverton resident, or someone from the close-in part of another central city? Or, to look at that same question in the opposite way, are the social and geographical differences between a central Portlander and an outer Hillsboro resident less than we think?

I’m not just talking about the ways in which infrastructure and zoning differ, but also the ways in which people move and interact there? I probably don’t spend much of any time in the suburbs, for example, unless it’s passing through on the way out of town, or to purchase some kind of electronics at one of the big-box stores.

Bender also points out the importance of shared space both real and imagined. In the case of New York, for example, he compares the poetry of Walt Whitman celebrating the city with Central Park doing so in a different way.

"Whitman's best poems fuse the long lists of Manhattan's chaos of peoples, things, movements and ideas into an imagined but never finished whole that seems to include them all. Likewise, that is what Frederick Law Olmsted's Central Park was intended to provide, and on occasion it does. When Olmstead described the park as democratic, he did not refer to governance, nor did he claim that it could overcome the social and economic structures that divided the city. But he thought that in such a great public space there could be moments of transcendance when the whole could imagine its collective selves there. He thought individuals could imagine themselves into the whole that was represented by the public space of the park -- and they could do so whether they were actually in the park or not."

Natural wonders here like Mt. Hood, the Columbia Gorge and the other valleys and beaches and forests here serve us in that same unifying way. I hardly ever actualy go to Mt. Hood, but knowing it's there is part of what makes me an Oregonian. In our built environment, I think of Portland's light-rail trains and streetcars as well as its buses (less romantically) in the same way. Even when I'm not taking mass transit, I think it's important that this is a strong part of our city's identity.

These are all rather abstract, contemplative thoughts that have little to do with the brick and mortar of building, of course. But so often I and others throw around definitions of Portland that are knee-jerk and rather outdated. It’s never a bad idea to rethink our most assumptive tendencies.

Delivering New Life to Post Office Site, and More from the City's Wish List

As reported in Tuesday's Portland Tribune, a realignment of downtown urban renewal districts may be in the works that could have a few significant effects. The plans are being drafted by a Portland Development Commission advisory committee.

This is also tied, I believe, to a drafted wish list for about $53 million in federal funds for eight projects from Congress as part of the "2008 Federal Agenda" that Andy Dworkin reported in The Oregonian a couple weeks ago.

One idea being considered is to River District to include up to 61 acres in Old Town/Chinatown area to go with the existing Pearl District portions. This would also guarantee millions of property tax dollars to help redevelop the main U.S. Post Office site. It's something that has been talked about for a long time, and I've long felt this property seemed like a sleeping giant.

What's more, I hope some of the existing post office building could be incorporated into a new structure. It's somewhat shabby now as a post office -- I really have to struggle to think of a post office that isn't shabby in one way or another -- but there are aspects of its mid-century modern design that are very handsome. If it could be done, I'd love to see a kind of hybrid of old and new architecture there. Why not make this a home for a public market, but a lot more as well? Then again, how about a new concert hall for the Oregon Symphony? Or a new contemporary art center? Even just a well executed mixed use project with housing or offices above retail would possibly suffice. If PDC were handling the allocation of that work, though, I'd like to see a revamping of the process to better empower great design as a priority, and not just something that meets livability and sustainability parameters. It doesn't have to be fancy, just good.

Another project included in the advisory committee plans, says the Tribune article, is a possible streetcar line for West Burnside. This, of course, is additionally tied to a re-routing of Burnside and Couch as one-way streets between I-405 to the West and 12th Street to the east.

Plenty of reasonable and intelligent people think this is a good idea, the couplet (pictured at left and below). There's an argument out there that it would foster development and more efficiently move traffic. Maybe so. But I'm still skeptical.  As I've said, it seems like a suburban solution, meant more to move cars than to be good urbanism. I think it'd make an island of blocks between Burnside and Couch like that between Northeast Broadway and Weidler, and between Grand and MLK. Perhaps it's warranted in those cases, but Burnside, I think, is different. It's the only street in the city touching SW, SE, NE and NW -- both literally and symbolically a unifying street. I think it needs to be two-way.

It also seems like the City Council is supporting this idea largely because of the attached streetcar proposal. Regardless, I also don't see how you can make such a major rupture to the traffic pattern on and around Burnside without looking at it in relation to the whole central city.

But, if you have a cool new post office project on Broadway, across from a renovated Union Station with a MAX train going by, a renovated 511 Broadway building occupied by PNCA, the Customs House remade as a boutique hotel (or its developers conceding interest to some type of arts program), and maybe even a completed Burnside Bridge construction project, and that sounds like an exciting transformation.

Hopefully it won't get lost in the mail like the last "Priority" package I sent to my sister.

Randal O'Toole vs. Smart Growth (or, Houston? They Have a Problem)

As Portland State University professor said in Anna Griffin's Oregonian profile, maybe we shouldn't even be giving Randal O'Toole any attention. After all, the guy actually thinks Houston is a far better model for urban growth than planning.

O'Toole, who lives in Bandon but is a Portland native, says Portland's emphasis on government planning has led to higher housing prices, a shrinking population of families, and increasingly bad congestion. Within his argument are kernels of truth: We are indeed facing all of those challenges here. It's O'Toole's conclusions, though, that push him towards what one might call "Dumb Growth".

"They're actually building roads in Houston," O'Toole says in the article. "They know something in Houston that we haven't figured out here. You can build your way out of a traffic problem." In fact, I think they could soon simply link up the freeways of Houston, Dallas and Phoenix so they become one continuous sprawled out megalopolis. In fact, you probably wouldn't have a traffic problem, or at least not an automobile-based one. People would just fly everywhere. Daughter's got a dance recital at school? Hop in the Cessna, everybody!

I've been to Houston. It is far, far, far from any kind of Utopia. In fact, visiting there a couple years ago confirmed for me the direction Portland is going: away from giant freeways, big houses with big lots, and the rest of the unsustainable post-World War II model. If O'Toole has somewhat of a point about what Portland's challenges are--housing costs, etc.--he completely mischaracterizes them.

For example, if there were a Mt. Hood Freeway like they almost built here in the 1960s, it'd be easier to go east quickly - at least when it's not rush hour. But what would we be driving to? And through? The apartment I live in in Southeast Portland might not even be here. It could be in the freeway's path. Meanwhile, I'm about to walk to the grocery store this morning, Mr. O'Toole. A Houstonian would more likely encounter a drive to get there - or anywhere. Those families O'Toole so valiantly defends? That'd cost them more in gas money in Houston.

Actually, though, Houston is no longer the Dumb Growth poster child that O'Toole wants it to be. That's right, even in deep in the heart of Texas they've decided to build light rail. Be sure to check the inside of those cars for residual manure and tobacco juice.

Nevertheless, as Griffin and her editors seem to feel, we can't ignore the Randal O'Tooles out there. Even here in Portland there are countless Libertarian true believers like him, who worship at the altar of free markets with endless faith, as if organizing and imagining and working toward the kind of community we want is some kind of folly. By that rationale, you'd think the freeway--loving O'Toole would like it better if the road ahead no longer was paved with asphalt, and instead we all made different grooves through the grass and dirt. Yet to merely ridicule them isn't very helpful. Just as countless people even a few years ago didn't believe in the reality of global warming, but now have come around to the inevitable, we need to seek out and engage these contrarians chasing windmills and all who would listen to them.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to look to European cities for Portland's inspiration, not the nation's most disastrously laid out urban wastelands. O'Toole's right that it costs more this way. But Randal, keep this in mind: you get what you pay for.

Beyond the Bowtie: Blumenauer on Architecture

In case you didn't happen to pick up a copy at the newsstand, this month's AIArchitect magazine includes a fairly extensive interview with Congressman Earl Blumenauer, whose district is comprised largely of east Portland and Multnomah County.

"A staunch advocate of the architecture profession and built environment, the congressman is committed to promoting livable communities at the federal level," the intro goes. "Dubbed the “Johnny Appleseed of Livability,” he has authored and co-sponsored legislation to preserve and protect public lands, shift U.S. energy policy towards renewable energy and energy efficiency, curb global warming, and restore America’s lakes and rivers. In the past 12 years, he has visited more than 100 U.S. communities to help local governments, citizens, and civic organizations build effective partnerships to manage growth, improve the environment, and provide transportation choices."

As it happens, one of the first articles I ever wrote, back in about 1997 for the now defunct Our Town, included an interview with Blumenauer. The piece was about faith-based charities and the question of whether federal social-service funding could be allocated to them without violating the separation of church and state (a nice fluff piece to get started with). Why he wanted to talk to a free downtown weekly I'm not sure, but press not involving scandal or gaffes never hurts an elected official.

Blumenauer is practically a lifer as a politician, but he has used that time to steadily win greater influence not only for his Portland-area district, but also to advance the idea of Portland: the way we put together our built environment and transportation matrix.

Asked a relatively softball question in the interview, about what the architecture community "is doing well" to enhance communities, the Congressman--apparently the owner of many, many frequent flier miles--had this to say:

I try to be in a different community every month. Two weekends ago, we were in Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. I’m struck by how everywhere, the architecture community is increasingly effective in being part of the community planning process. The [AIA] 2030 Challenge that deals with energy conservation has been seized upon and is being used both in new architectural commissions and in local policies dealing with energy conservation. The architecture community is at the right place at the right time with the right solutions, and they’re being more vocal about it.

Asked about asked architects and political advocacy, he went on:

"I think there’s no better advocate than an architect for tying these pieces together. They understand the role that design principles play, but they also interact with code requirements and comprehensive plan elements. They’re the master weavers and the communicators who talk to the clients, local authorities, and oftentimes people in the community who have concerns about the impact a project will have. The architectural community needs to be willing to engage more broadly in what they do nationally with the AIA and other organizations, including being more aggressive locally and raising the profile of these issues, spotlighting the good stuff, and being constructively critical about outmoded policies and practices. The architect is right in the middle of the most important public policy considerations in any community. The more they understand, appreciate, and act that role, the better off we’ll all be."

Asked later in the interview about what he likes to do in his free time, Blumenauer turns out to be an avid marathoner, completing his 36th earlier this fall. For those politicians able to stay more or less continually in office over the years and (in some cases) decades, without succumbing to scandal or other reasons for backlash, and surviving the ebbs and flows of one party and then another grabbing ahold of the majority, an elected official's career really is a kind of marathon. He's never really the hottest commodity in the cult-of-personality that drives large national media outlets, and he doesn't wield the kind of power that would warrant it anyway. But slowly over time, by consistently carrying his message back and forth between Portland and DC, and to all the other cities he visits, there's no question Earl Blumenauer has had a big effect on Portland's built environment and transportation network.

Now, the bow tie is another matter altogether. But then again, this is not exactly a formally dressing city, and there's probably something appropriate to Blumenauer's look, especially amid the sameness of probably all 544 other elected leaders on Capitol Hill wearing regular ties. (An exception would have been the former Illinois senator and 1988 presidential candidate Paul Simon, but he's no longer in Congress...or alive.) Maybe I'm just jealous that the congressman is being inherently more Portland than I will ever dare.

A Second Look at the City's Courtyard Housing Competition

Last month when I wrote about the City of Portland planning department's Courtyard Housing competition, it was mainly to announce that winners were about to be announced, as well as to look at the role such a housing type could play in the city's ongoing densification.

Today I decided to have a closer look at the competition winners and to go back and look at the comments to my own post after the winners were announced.

The biggest question mark, both for the competition and for the city itself as courtyard housing potentially goes forward, is what the shared open space is really for. Is it a place for people to park their cars, and then for kids to play on as an afterthought? Or is the courtyard meant to be a green space without autos or a concrete/asphalt surface?

The city has a difficult balancing act to pull off in a situation like this. They have to be pragmatic about what the market wants (or its perception) and what developers are likely to build. Indications from the buying public is that they usually strongly prefer having off-street parking, so developers naturally respond to that and the city in turn. But when you have a design competition involving courtyards, as many people have pointed out, that traditionally refers more to a green open space.

A large motivating factor for the city in holding the courtyard housing competition is to provide affordable housing options for families. That means more bedrooms and open space outside. So the better family option, you could argue, is courtyards with greenery, not asphalt. And for those of us who are looking at these designs not as possible future dwellings of our own, but merely as additions to the city we judge aesthetically, a true courtyard without the parking-first mentality is a much more attractive looking space. But if you're a developer looking to bet your business on a multi-unit project like this, removing on-site parking could be a major gamble.

Looking at the entries, I quicly felt torn about what my criteria should be. My natural inclination was to search for images of good-looking architecture. It's more fun to look at nice sculptural aspects of architecture than to ponder site plans and stormwater treatment strategies. Yet that's of course a much different means of valuation than it would be for someone expecting to live or build there.

For example, looking at the Inner Portland category (there was also an outer category), I liked the second and third place (the Merit and Citation) award winners pictured above better aesthetically than the top prize winner, the honor award (pictured below). The Merit and Citation winners had more clean-lined, handsome architecture to them, although the top Honor award winner was arguably at a more appropriate scale for a starter family home and seemingly of rougher, cheaper materials. So it's hard for me to say I disagree for the jury, even as I feel pretty sure I know I would prefer at least a couple of the runners up as better looking additions to the city.

Having said all this, the real issue may not be aesthetics or even planning, but the process of getting developers to build these designs. On its website FAQ, the competition text says, "The City of Portland intends to facilitate built projects based on the winning designs, potentially through means such as providing funding to aid in adapting designs to actual building sites and through encouraging developers to partner with winning designers in an anticipated design-build competition." Will this fulfill the promise of better designed high-density architecture? After all, that's the whole point.

AIA Center Opens With Yeon Exhibit

After a series of delays that saw its original early-fall opening pushed back, the new AIA/Portland Center for Architecture is throwing open the doors of its new Pearl District home at NW 11th and Flanders.

The first exhibit will be a retrospective on John Yeon, who ranks with Pietro Belluschi, A.E. Doyle and John Storrs among the top Portland architects of the 20th Century. Unlike those designers, however, Yeon's principal focus was houses. But Yeon certainly made his mark there. Throughout Portland and the Oregon coast are several gems he designed. Organized by Randy Gragg, the former Oregonian architecture critic and founding editor of the new Portland Spaces magazine making its debut in January, this AIA/CFA exhibit is based largely on Yeon's 1977 retrospective at the Portland Art Museum. (Wow, they used to do exhibits on design at PAM?) But Randy has also added numerous drawings, writings and new photographs that haven't been exhibited before.

Randy also wrote an essay for Arcade, the fine Seattle-based regional architecture magazine, about Yeon. I particularly enjoyed this passage about Yeon's talent seen in the circa-1937 Watzek House now owned by the University of Oregon that still stands in the West Hills:

"The house seamlessly blends a vast array of Modernist technical and formal innovations with a cunning use of historical precedent. Camouflaged in rough-sawn fir siding and fronted by a seeming bland (but studiously abstract) entrance, the house immediately opens to a world of breathtaking detail and craftsmanship, from the courtyard garden to the final crescendo of a floor-to-ceiling, glazed view of Mount Hood.

Published internationally and exhibited next to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water in the Museum of Modern Art’s 10th Anniversary exhibit, the house became one of the major icons of an the emerging West Coast interpretation of Modernism, the “Northwest Regional Style.” Yet in his radical reconfiguration of a veritable catalog of spatial effects and formal details from the architecture and landscape design of the past, he presages the most sophisticated notions of Postmodernism. Synthesizing elements of everything from urban Chinese gardens to the theatrics of Karl Friederich Schinkel, Yeon’s goal was to architecturally dramatize the procession from nature to culture and back."

In the months and years ahead after Yeon's exhibit, look for the CFA to be a gathering place for the design community in a way that the old AIA headquarters, for all its cool surfaces, probably didn't have. The AIA gallery should be more of a real player now in the local art scene, showcasing the efforts of great local architects past and present. And any number of art and community voices should consider the Center a gathering place for meetings, entertainment, and engagement.

(AIA/Portland is also a sponsor of this website.)

"In the Land of Influence", the opening Yeon retrospective, officially opens tomorrow with First Thursday, which given the AIA's new location closer to the hub of Pearl galleries should significantly add to its foot traffic. I used to work at the AIA in its SW Fourth Avenue location years ago, and there were some very nice exhibits that went largely unseen by the larger local art community. That should change now. If you're like me, and prefer to do your gallery hopping outside of First Thursday, the Yeon exhibit is actually up now.

Notes on Design Competitions, Permeable Pavement (and Tyler Durden)

It seems like a host of design competitions, both actual ones and those merely in the talking stage, have come up a lot lately.

In today’s Oregonian, Eric Mortenson reports on a new competition sponsored by Metro, “Integrating Habitats”, to generate ideas and designs that result in green clusters of development, not just green buildings. The competition has already attracted 234 entries from 10 countries, Mortenson reports, with a respected jury that includes local developer Jim Winkler, German architect Stefan Behnisch, and Metropolis magazine editor Susan Szenasy.

The Metro competition likely won’t ever be a high-profile one because it’s more of an ideas-based competition, rather than one resulting in tangible built work. But it’s a logical next step for the Portland area’s efforts to truly build green in a world-leading way.

Incidentally, the idea of green urban design got me wondering: what's to stop the Portland Department of Transportation from having its road-paving crews from now on use nothing but permeable pavement material?

Speaking of high-profile, today a reader forwarded me a New York Times article about a design competition co-sponsored by actor Brad Pitt to generate houses for the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Several star architects and firms like Thom Mayne and Pugh + Scarpa of Los Angeles, David Adjaye of London, and Japan’s Shigeru Ban. (Incidentally, If Pitt's Tyler Durden was the ringleader of Fight Club, what does it make these guys--The Magnificent Several? Charge of the Black Mock-Turtleneck Brigade?)

As I understand it, Pitt’s was an invited competition, as compared to the completely open-ended housing competitions we’ve had here, such as Living Smart to generate skinny-lot houses, and the city’s more recent competition to generate courtyard-style housing. I certainly like the idea of an open competition in that it allows young firms to compete on an even playing field and, theoretically, for the best design to win. But it’s probably no coincidence that the New Orleans designs in the Times today seem a little sexier and more interesting than the work our two competitions generated. But of course it also depends on what you're looking for; in a city competition, pure functionality understandably carries more weight.

Finally, there’s the matter of two local bridges set to be constructed. Recently on this site we talked about the planned new Sellwood Bridge, which is not using a competition. I’d questioned at the time whether a competition would have fostered more originality, but perhaps this particular project is not the right one for such a format because of its modest size. A lot of people seem to think something that functions well will suffice, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. However, what is enticing about a competition is the chance to get something better than sufficient—although of course it’s not guaranteed, either.

Where a design competition might be a lot more appropriate is for the new span planned for the I-5 Columbia River crossing. In case you missed it last week, the panel of experts looking at options for the span—particularly whether to expand/repair the existing bridge or build a new one—have recommended an entirely new structure.

The Columbia River bridge has a lot of function to attend to every day (moving thousands of cars efficiently without so much congestion), as well as a lot of red tape to clear (state, federal and local officials). However, this is a bridge that could and arguably should be a real landmark for the state. What’s more uniquely Portland than its rivers and the bridges that cross them? And this isn’t any river; it’s the Columbia, a particularly big, significant one. It's calling out for something not only functional, but beautiful. It doesn't have to be as showy as a Santiago Calatrava bridge like the one pictured here; maybe in the Northwest it should tend to be more like the land bridge being completed in Vancouver as part of the Maya Lin-overseen Confluence Project. I guess I'd be happy with something kind of in between. But, to borrow from the language of my fellow blogger Mike Merrill, it really needs to be awesome.

If one were to advocate for a design competition for the Columbia crossing, what are the chances of making it happen? Who needs to sign off? Many have credited the media and particularly former Oregonian architecture critic Randy Gragg (including Randy) for jump-starting the idea of a competition for the aerial tram. It really seems like the Columbia bridge is the next big public works transportation project that needs a competition.

But just as these projects are different, so too are the competitions themselves. I love design competitions, and have long advocated for them in Portland. But clearly they are no panacea, especially when executed or set up poorly. What would we need to do to ensure a Columbia bridge competition not only happens, but happens correctly? I’m thinking it should be an invited competition, for example, with only certain top firms and designers selected. But in the meantime, getting to that point is the vastly greater challenge. Are we ready to cross that span?