Portland Architecture

Portland central city plans: past, present, future

Do you remember what you were doing on March 24, 1988? I was a 10th grader at the time, counting the days until I could get my driver's license and speed recklessly through McMinnville, and reading Cliff's Notes of literary classics for English class. But here in Portland, that day saw the release of the Central City Plan (pictured at left).

In other words, it's been more than 20 years since Portland, that much hailed bastion of planning, has updated its plans for the greater downtown core.

But fear not: We won't be sliding back into Dallas or Atlanta-like tendencies just yet. The city is currently at work on a new Portland Plan. A citizens advisory committee is expected to begin work in September, with completion in 2010. There are also intra-neighborhood plans like the North Pearl District Plan, which for example could see that area near the base of the Fremont Bridge go considerably taller. (Which makes sense.)

The last Central City Plan in 1988 was largely an expansion of the 1972 plan, which created high density office and retail cores downtown as well as the Transit Mall along 5th and 6th Avenues. The 1988 plan focused on greater connections with the river and expanded the notion of the central city to the south and east. The '88 plan also emphasized introducing housing to the urban core.

In an interview published earlier this month in The Oregonian by Stephen Beaven, Steve Iwata of the Planning Bureau said the goal this time around is to bring more jobs to the central core neighborhoods. "I think we've done pretty well on the housing side," he said, "But job creation, that's a significant challenge."

I'd amend that thought just slightly: We need more job creation in the northern part of the central city, particularly the Pearl District. There are already numerous office spaces under construction there. But we still need lots more housing in the traditional part of downtown and in Old Town. That's the only way we can get downtown to stop feeling dead on evenings and weekends, or overrun with vagrancy. This phenomenon has improved measurably in the central core over the last 20 years, but there is still a long way to go.

How would the rest of you like to see the new Portland Plan for the central core put together?

Arun Jain, chief urban design strategist for the city, has with his staff created several studies of past Portland planning efforts, such as those involving famed New York freeway builder/neighborhood destroyer Robert Moses, and earlier plans involving the famous Olmstead Olmsted brothers of Central Park fame. (The plan at right is from 1897.) Jain, who I also interviewed in June for Design Within Reach's 'Designs on Portland' discussion series, has also scoured the globe for cities whose topography, street grids, relationship with bodies of water and other factors either resemble Portland or provide a historic case study: Barcelona, Savannah (Georgia), Glassgow Glasgow, Edinburgh, Philadelphia and Kyoto.

Of the street grid examples, "Each city uses its grid differently," Jain says. " Some follow it rigidly (Philadelphia, Barcelona, Savannah) whereas others manipulate it for emphasis (Kyoto, Edinburgh, Glasgow).  Philadelphia and Barcelona have disturbed the monotony of their grids through powerful diagonals but Savannah deliberately enhances its character through repetition and extension of the historic grid."

"In contrast, Kyoto plays with its grid by combining or further sub-dividing it to satisfy changing function and need. Kyoto also overcomes monotony through a height strategy that allows only temples and prominent structures to dominate.."

Regarding topographical factors, Jain says, "Cities with the strongest natural forms have a natural advantage in framing and defining their urban form.  Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Kyoto have capitalized on their assets by deliberately limiting development on surrounding hills, preserving only large historic monuments and allowing only few prominent institutions and outlooks." 

Each city’s relationship with water varies, too. Proximity to water frames and contains the urban cores of Philadelphia and Kyoto, while Barcelona and Savannah have water as an edge, and Glasgow and Edinburgh embrace both sides of their river.

Then there is the character and identity, something as important to Portland as its architecture. "Barcelona pursues its agenda of social equity in terms how art and design are expressed in the city," Jain says. "Glasgow has chosen to leave industrial artifacts to retain historic memory and character and reinvent itself as a cultural and youth-oriented city.  Edinburgh has strict design guidelines to retain historic character and ambiance while using monuments and icons to pursue the creative city and promote innovation.  Kyoto encourages preservation and restoration of the traditional Machs building form.  Savannah has adopted a strategy to createa city of parks.  Philadelphia has used a mix of traditional historic inheritances and reuse of existing infrastructure to continue its evolution."

What do these comparisons mean? They provide a template, or a guide, for how we go forward with issues like establishing more creative and recurring uses of Portland’s grid, creating better waterfront relationships to and across each river bank, promoting civic functions and events to strategically activate street life, and enhancing existing assets (such as bridges) through lighting and design. If we don't, we could end up with a freeway-strewn city like Moses planned in this map.

At the same time, planning can only do so much. It's the private sector who mostly fills out the city. That said, Jain is right that we ought not to plan in a vacuum. We don't want Portland to be any other city, but some of them have been at it a lot longer than us.

Meanwhile, there is also an upcoming series of evening lectures as part of Riverfest that will feature a variety of speakers who will discuss Willamette River's role - past, present, and future -- in shaping the city we live in. The lectures will be held September 2, 3, 4 and 5 from 7:00pm - 9:00pm at the former McCall's restaurant at 1020 SW Naito Parkway. The series is officially called "The Lower Willamette Group/Port of Portland Willamette Chautauqua". Just don't try to say it five times fast.

Writing a new tune for Schnitzer Hall

Sam Bennett reports in today's Daily Journal of Commerce that the Metropolitan Exposition Recreation Commission is considering renovations to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall that would include not only an expansion of the 80-year-old venue (formerly the Paramount Theater), but also the construction of a new outdoor venue on Main Street between the Schnitzer and the Portland Center for the Performing Arts.

A recent request for proposal issued by MERC seeks architects to design "a new iconic venue transforming Main Street...into a cultural center and pedestrian plaza" that "could be used to host small classes, seminars and public outreach programs in a cultural arts district setting."

Conceptually, the idea of an "iconic" venue could be exciting, and a wonderful design opportunity. At the same time, I wonder: would it be worth closing down Main street to auto traffic? Of course one wants downtown to be for pedestrians and mass transit first, and cars only after that. Even so, making one's way west in that area by car is already compromised with the next street over closed to auto traffic for two blocks with the Art Museum and Eliot Tower/YWCA. When you add all the construction happening because of MAX and an endless stream of building projects, it's a lot of time wasted for people behind the wheel.

Currently Main Street between Schnitzer Hall and PCPA is a flexible space that can be shut down to traffic during certain performances or other events, but otherwise remains a drivable street. Isn't that a fair compromise? Or am I underestimating the visual, architectural and cultural power that a new car-free space between these theaters could offer?

And speaking of the Schnitz, I also seem to recall an report issued a few years ago and commissioned by the Oregon Symphony (with a few other arts organizations) that said what Portland needed was an entirely new concert hall. After all, the Schnitz is a converted movie house. How about instead of building on the street between these two facilities, we apply those funds to a magnificent jewel of a new concert hall designed by Brad Cloepfil or a world-class architect?

Personally, I'd rather keep the street and build a new landmark elsewhere. What do the rest of you think?

Jumpsuits, tai-chi and roving theater: South Waterfront's artistic experiment

If you've ventured down to the South Waterfront district in the last year, at times there haven't been many people around beyond construction workers building condos, medical staff and patients at OHSU, and a few of the first intrepid residents to this new area of town.

But maybe you've seen a woman in a strange orange jumpsuit that's been altered into a dress. If you thought to yourself, 'What's that weird artist doing in South Waterfront?", you weren't far off. Artist Linda Johnson has been acting since September 1, 2007 as the neighborhood's official artist in residence.

What does it mean for a neighborhood to have an artist in residence? It's not necessarily the kind of situation there are rules for. But Johnson, more than presenting her own work, has brought in a steady stream of guest performers and artists (13 in all) to help give South Waterfront something that it can't achieve solely from the metal and glass of its modern towers: a sense of community.

 

Or, as their website puts it, "Artists representing all media have been invited to create time-based, temporary work that explores and promotes a sense of place in the South Waterfront district. The goal of this accumulated practice of installation, performance and written/spoken word is to inspire dialog, inquiry, curiosity and participation among the South Waterfront residents, as well as the people of Portland."

I can't think of too many neighborhoods that have tried such a thing, but SoWa is the perfect place. When you walk around this less than half-finished neighborhood, it desperately needs people to come out of their condos and establish a personality. Many of the artists' efforts may be conceptually esoteric or even a little silly, but that's all part of the fun.

Johnson has a history of art that celebrates and enlivens forgotten or under-utilized urban spaces. In 2000, her performance piece "Tax Lot 1S1E44ODD" converted a median strip near an I-5 offramp into a community garden. The year before, she was part of a group art show at the AIA gallery with architect Mark Lakeman and artists Brian Borello and Vanessa Renwick in which the crisp, modern Jeff Lamb-designed space was covered with hay bales.

Among the artists and presentations so far: In July there was Ten Tiny Dances, with site-based dance performances throughout the neighborhood. Also last month, noted public artist Bill Will created with Johnson in "Promenade" an episodic sound, light and performance piece tuned with the sunset and the landscape.

In May, artist Horatio Hun-Yan Law organized a series of interactive tai-chi workshops. In March, artist Adam Kuby actually treated the landscape itself, subject in previous generations to ruptures and injuries through the building of I-5 and the severing of the Corbett/Terwilliger/Lair Hill neigbhorhoods from the water, with giant acupuncture needles. In April, Maria T. D. ("touchdown"?) Inocencio and Mark Smith created in "Compass" an interactive map-making project with residents that put Portland at the center of the world and asked them to fill in the blanks. There have also been performances and works by the talented jazz musician Tim DuRoche and photographer Christopher Rauschenberg (son of Robert Rauschenberg), among others.

For those still looking to get in on the action, next up is the final month of the guest-Artist in Residence program. Sojourn Theater's "Built" is will investigate the essence of place with a series of games, research, performance and audience interaction. As their press release says, "Sojourn asks participants to help imagine the multi-faceted futures of cities in the midst of growth and change." Today (Saturday, August 23) will include a public dialog, and then performances of the finished piece will be held during the TBA Festival on September 5, 6 and 7.

Congratulations to Linda Johnson on a year's worth of successful efforts to create a sense of place for the architecture and people in South Waterfront to thrive.

The Victorian age

For the past few days I’ve been vacationing in Victoria, BC. It’s not my first trip here, but it might as well be. The last time I was a toddler.

(In case you’re wondering, no—this doesn’t have much to do with Portland Architecture. But I trust you gentle readers will cut me some slack. We’ll be back with regular local design programming by late this week. Or early next week at the latest. I mean, hey, the French take a whole month off. Can't I have a couple days?)

The city is considerably smaller than I expected. I knew Victoria was not a big metropolis like Vancouver (Canada), but it feels almost like a small Oregon coast town—particularly Astoria, with its fabric of historic homes. From our hotel looking out at the inner harbor (or, if you prefer, ‘harbour’) there is a constant stream of sea planes landing on the water and the squawk of seagulls, but otherwise it seems like a sleepy town. Victoria, like lots of Canada, also feels a bit more European, especially British of course, than US cities. There are old stone churches and probably more Welsh rarebit or shepherd’s pie than we have in Portland. But like our city, the visual icon is not any built structure so much as the surrounding mountains. In Victoria despite the proximity to the sea, the sunset view is blocked by the Olympic mountains of Washington, but in return they seem to insulate the town both figuratively and literally.

Easily the most well known building is the Empress Hotel, a grand stone edifice covered in ivy, overlooking the harbor from a front row vantage on Government Street. Although Portland has a few venerable old hotels such as the Benson, we don’t have an iconic grand hotel like the Empress – wouldn’t you say?

Naturally the signature attraction of Victoria, though, is Butchart Gardens. We went there today and it was indeed spectacular. But riding the half-hour so on the bus from downtown to Buchart, the otherwise unique central city gave way surprisingly quickly to the same generic stretch of strip malls and chain stores as everywhere else. This after seeing not a single McDonald's downtown. Starbucks seemed the only corporation to crack the code until we got further into Victoria's outer environs.

Yesterday I was walking in the Oak Bay neighborhood and happened to notice a historic marker designating the spot of an old trolley-car line. Although more European, Victoria also was not immune to the age of automobiles.

Because I have a back injury and can’t walk around as much as I’d normally like to, we (the girlfriend and I) took a ride on one of those touristy open-topped double-decker buses. I had to laugh at the tour guide’s unintended architectural prejudices. If we came past an old “heritage building”, the guide would proudly explain how it had been preserved and couldn’t be torn down. Which is great, of course. But then inevitably he’d say something like, “Now if you see that building on your left that looks a little like a prison, that’s one of our new modern waterfront houses,” or “that’s one of our new condos.” It’s true that bad modern architecture can be pretty oppressive, especially if there isn’t a lot of glass and transparency to the design. But some of the high density they’re adding to Victoria, like most other North American cities, seems both aesthetically appealing and good for the town. Who wants sprawl in such beautiful country, looking out at the San Juan Islands, and the ocean?

To get here, we eschewed the easier/faster plane right or driving combination for an Amtrak trip to Seattle and then a ferry to Victoria. Boarding at Union Station early last Sunday morning, the train was surprisingly packed. The conductor told us ridership on the Cascades line between Portland and Seattle has been way up since the cost of gas skyrocketed. I don’t like paying over $4 a gallon any more than the next person, but it was another reminder of how the resulting changes in Americans’ habits because of oil and gas inflation are a strong bright side. If people keep riding Amtrak a lot more than they used to, might this be the impetus that’s needed to upgrade this pathetic excuse for a national passenger rail system? Or maybe, dare I say, a high-speed rail system? After all, our combination train and ferry trip through Seattle to Vancouver took us about nine hours (three for each leg, with another three hours in between). If the numbers stayed high, it’d be easier to have more trains running more frequently on the tracks between Seattle and Portland each day, or even more ferries to Victoria. It seems like we’re ready to upgrade mass transit in the coming generation, but the infrastructure is still far from meeting those needs.

Meanwhile, it will always be nice to get back to the Rose City. Call me biased or even sentimental perhaps, but whether it’s Seattle or any other North American city, I don’t think any compare to ours.

Hines and Pelli withdraw from San Diego city hall competition, leaving the job (possibly or probably) in Portland hands

Houston developer Hines has withdrawn from the two-team competition for the San Diego Civic Center, which would include a new city hall and several other buildings. That leaves the team of Gerding Edlen Development and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca as the only new-construction option.

The announcement of Hines' dropout doesn't, however, guarantee Gerding and ZGF (their proposal is pictured here) the job. There are several additional proposals put together by a consultant to the city that would upgrade existing leased facilities or move these governmental facilities out of the central city. But that same consulting firm also reported that both the new construction plans from finalists Gerding and Hines plans would save the city more money in the long run. Even though Gerding's proposal was much more ambitious than Hines', it was actually found to be more economical and save more money. That seems to be why Hines dropped out.

If the Portland team gets the go-ahead from San Diego's city council in November, that will mean our city's premier big developer and architecture firm will be creating a landmark city hall for the heart of one of the 10 biggest cities in America.

Hey San Diego City Council: just in case any of you honorable people are listening, this is a no-brainer. Hmm, let's see: a huge new multi-block city hall and mixed-use development, all ultra-green, or more upkeep to shabby old buildings the city is leasing, which would actually cost more in the long run then spanking new architectuer that re-invigorates and redefines the central heart of the city. What is there even to deliberate about?

San Diego is already a very nice and livable city, one of the two nicest in California along with San Francisco. With Gerding and ZGF they would be getting a quintessential Portland design expertise: making successful urban spaces. I'd rather have a multi-block area that's pleasant on the ground level than some Koolhaas or Ghery confection by itself. Even so, I like the look of the 34-story city hall tower ZGF is proposing a lot.

And as for the San Diego-Oregon connection that could be happening: It worked with the great Dan Fouts, didn't it? One of the top Duck footballers of all time was a Hall of Famer for the Chargers. (Probably the top player in their franchise's history before Ladanian Tomlinson.)

This would also be another feather in ZGF's cap, which like the USA basketball team you could possibly give the nickname of "Redeem Team". This was never a bad firm, but their work is much better now (or at least better looking) than a decade ago. I'm told that Gene Sandoval and Braulio Baptista in the Portland office are leading the charge along with ZGF's San Diego Los Angeles office, particularly partner-in-charge Doss Mabe. (What a cool name, by the way. Doss Mabe sounds like a character from an old-school Hollywood western.)

I've written about Gene several times before; he was in my Oregonian list of the top 10 people on the Portland architecture scene a couple months ago. (He's pictured at left in a shot by Motoya Nakamura of The Oregonian.) But Braulio is a real talent as well. And they make a very good match for Gerding Edlen, whether it's on this San Diego project or here in Portland.

10th & Yamhill SmartPark set (tentatively) to become Carroll-developed tower

As reported in today's Oregonian by Brent Hunsberger, the Portland Development Commission has approved a preliminary agreement with developer John Carroll to replace the downtown SmartPark at SW 10th Avenue and Yamhill Street with a new garage (slightly smaller) topped by 20 stories of offices, condos or hotel rooms.

The city currently has about $11.5 million to contribute, but under the plan approved Wednesday would contribute about $30 million out of the $160 million budget. The public contribution would come from urban renewal and parking funds.

This is a rather ugly concrete garage that has been very useful but is now past its time. It's been in the news most recently because ground-floor tenant Peterson's convenience store, which was almost evicted because of the unpleasant environment outside its doors.

Personally, even though the point will eventually be moot when the garage is rebuilt, I was glad to see Peterson's survive. Certainly improvements such as added security could be made, as the owner has agreed to. But unfortunate as it may be, this is a common problem with convenience stores, and it's not entirely the owner's fault. And we need to have a simple convenience store like this downtown considering there are relatively few of them.

And while those hanging out in front of the store and the MAX stop outside are often rough-around-the edge kids and/or vagrants, that's part of life in the city. I mean, I hate the giant black Chevy Suburban with a "NOBama" bumper sticker I see every time I go to the accupuncturist. (She's in the same building as a realtor.) But hey, bad taste isn't a crime, nor is bad hygiene. I'm no expert, but I'll bet something as simple as playing classical music outside Peterson's could change that environment and discourage sitting or lying without killing somebody's small business or harassing people who look grimier than you and me. Am I opening Pandora's box commenting on this?

Regarding the tower's preliminary agreement, this is the next big development for John Carroll following the Ladd Tower. In that project, as many will recall, Carroll was instrumental in saving the adjacent historic Ladd Carriage House. But the Ladd Tower, co-developed as a half-block condo with Opus Northwest and the landowner, First Christian Church, also brought about the demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments on that same block, a beautiful brick courtyard apartment building dating to 1907. And now, with the fledgling condo market, the Ladd Tower has turned into rental apartments. Architecturally, the Ankrom Moisan-designed building has a traditional-looking masonry base and a more modern glassy upper portion.

Although the Ladd Tower is still under construction, I think a better example of his work will still turn out to be Carroll's previous one, the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca-designed Eliot Tower behind the Portland Art Museum. That building, which Ankrom did the interiors for, is one of the prettiest of the large-scale condos in the city; I meant to include it in a recent post about The Metropolitan and the new class of better-looking big condo towers (although the Eliot is a couple years old now).

Carroll also developed two block-sized Pearl District condos, The Gregory and The Elizabeth (both by Ankrom). The Gregory is a cartoonish art-deco style, but its look has grown on me over the years. And I've heard it's one of the most popular with the public (you know, not architecture geeks like us). The Elizabeth, like The Gregory, is short and squatty -- not very flattering proportions -- and is a dreary gray brick with small hints of ye olde Britain, and maybe just a touch of Frank Lloyd Wright. It's not a favorite of mine, but in time may benefit from the contrast of more ubiquitous tall glass buildings around it as the Pearl fills out.

The 10th and Yamhill garage project at one point seemed like it might go to Gerding Edlen development, who would have contributed leading-edge expertise on sustainability and urban place-making, the latter of which would have been particularly useful in re-invigorating this under-utilized twin block area with The Galleria. Carroll's company, on the other hand, has long been adept at seizing projects along the streetcar line.

One thing I'm not clear about after reading the Oregonian article is whether the new garage would be above ground, with the human-inhabited portion only beginning above that (and the ground floor retail). Why not just expand the underground garage next door even more? After all, should we be building any above-ground garage in the central city anymore, even one making better use of space with a tower on top? I think the current garage is a testament to the drawbacks aesthetically we'd get from even a fancy new above-ground garage/tower combination.

Parks department chooses Bike Republic for Yeon-designed waterfront building (updated)

It's now official: the city's Parks department has selected Bike Republic as the new occupant of the waterfront Portland Visitors Information Center building designed by the great John Yeon. The new facility will offer bike rentals, repair and amenities like a shower. There will also be a Laughing Planet cafe for all your healthy chicken burrito needs.

This is probably the best use for the site in terms of what people will use on a regular basis, especially with the cyclist-heavy Hawthorne bridge next to the building. The selection is also probably not the best one in terms of architecture. Chet Orloff's museum proposal, the other finalist, is close to the building's original intent. But if Bike Republic is what it takes to save this building from demolition or being moved (which an Oregonian editorial made an ill-advised suggestion of), I say, saddle up!

Has anyone yet heard who will be overseeing the design and construction of this project? Bike Republic's owner, Ken Nichols, will hopefully hire architects who really know historic preservation of mid-century modern buildings. With all due respect to the cyclists, we can't let this little architectural gem become a glorified garage.

 

Update 8-15-08: On the BikePortland blog, Jonathan Maus reports that not all of the Bike Republic details are a done deal yet after all:

Ken Nichols, the developer behind the Bike Republic concept told me via telephone today that he has no official agreement with the Portland Parks Bureau yet. Nichols wants to be clear that the only recent development is that Parks has decided to only negotiate with him from now — but those negotiations are just getting underway....he said he has no plans for showers, locker rooms, or long-term bike parking. “My hope,” he said, “is for a cafe, rentals of human powered vehicles (not just bikes), and bike repair and accessory retail.” In addition, he said that at this point, a Laughing Planet Cafe in the building is not a guarantee.

We'll see.

Poetry from Prose: LEED Platinum row houses by Building Arts Workshop

When they relocated to Portland from California not long ago, husband-wife architects Jeff and Tracy Prose got right to work for an anxious client: themselves.

The pair, working under the firm name Building Arts Workshop, have designed and seen construction completed on a pair of connected row homes in the Burlingame area of Southwest Portland near Lewis & Clark College. (I love the firm's name, by the way, which reminds me of the Sesame Street producers Children's Television Workshop or the seminal 60s group Modern Jazz Quartet, both past faves.) The project is poised to earn a Platinum rating from the US Green Building Council's LEED for Homes program.

Visiting Jeff and Tracy's house a couple weeks ago (once I accounted for a wrong term that took me all the way to Lake Oswego), it was easy to spot the pair of row houses with their blend of wood cladding, masonry, glass, and slanting roofs. 

Or is it more appropriate to call this project a single duplex? In keeping with city code, the two homes share a common wall, but Jeff and Tracy found a way to create better privacy and greenspace. In the front of the property, the two residences share a garage, but behind the garage both units look out onto a shared bamboo-filled courtyard and bioswale that captures rainwater and looks a lot more attractive than your average grass lawn (although less usable for the kids).

Inside, as an Oregonian Homes & Gardens article pointed out, the sustainability factor doesn't prevent a clean, contemporary feel with tons of natural light. The dining area is the heart of the home, anchoring a double-height space onto which the upstairs hallway looks out.

One disclosure: the project was brought to my attention by realtor Bob Zaikoski of Portland Modern, who sold the adjacent row home for Jeff & Tracy and is also a sponsor of this website. But I hope it's obvious that I'm writing about this project because it's good, not because I owe Bob some kind of favor. If anyone thinks this is an egregious break with integrity, please let me know by email.

Not every architect or firm, even the very talented ones, is cut out for developing its own projects. Which is not to say one approach to design is better than the other. However, that Jeff & Tracy did so, and with wonderful results, is something to applaud.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention this in the original post, but this house will also be included in the Build It Green homes tour on Saturday, September 20.

Cloepfil's artistic inspirations

Arcy Douglass has an extensive interview with architect Brad Cloepfil on the PORT website today, focusing on how modern and contemporary art has affected his designs. Cloepfil is a big art fan, and he cites works by Richard Serra, Sol Le Witt, Robert Irwin and others:

Douglass: How did your early experience with art feedback into your own creative process as an architect?

Cloepfil: When I was younger, I tended to be influenced by the raw experience of the work itself. At first, I wasn't even aware of who created a work, whether it was Richard Serra or Robert Irwin, it was the experience of the work itself that was important. The experience makes you ask yourself about the spatial quality of that type of work and about the ideas that those artists are exploring. It just resonates with you. 

I wasn't seeing anything comparable in buildings. It just seems like those guys understood more about the intentions of the 19th and 20th century architecture than the architects did. They had clarity of thought and a practice that was built on the exploration of material that became very important to me. The singular act of focus to create a work of art was really impressive. 

I saw Richard Serra's Circuit at MoMA and it is just four pieces of steel propped up in the corners of the room. The physical presence and the mass of the steel and its ability to radiate space into the small gallery was for me a very architectural experience that I could relate to much easier than the so-called "architecture" that was being produced at that time. The experience is about the material and the way that the material is made. It was also easier to learn from the artists because their work is so pure. By that I mean, the work that I was interested in was focused on the exploration of only one or two ideas. 

Buildings tend to be more complicated. It is hard to understand buildings when you are young unless they are a pure pavilion or something. A building is full of program, structure, stairs and support spaces that are necessary for the function of the building but very different than the direct experience of seeing work by Serra or Irwin. As a young student, art was more accessible. It was easier to understand what the artists were thinking about and what they were pursuing in their work.

What art has affected and influenced the rest of you architects out there? Is it an all-black painting that captured your fancy, like Cloepfil, or is there some closet Thomas Kincaide lover out there eager to cite his influence on their quaint English cottage?

As much as art, I also remember Cloepfil talking in a previous New York Times story I wrote about how he was inspired by the landscape of Oregon. ''It's a very romantic perception of space,'' he explained. ''I think it frees you up, and allows you to think of architecture as something more than objects.''

Weighing the two finalists for Yeon-designed former McCall's site

By the end of this month, the city Parks Bureau will make its recommendation to Commissioner Dan Saltzman on which of two finalists should be selected for redevelopment of the circa-1948 John Yeon-designed Portland Visitors Information Center (more recently McCall's restaurant).

One of the finalists is a facility called Bike Republic and would offer bike parking, rentals and repair, with a Laughing Planet restaurant. I could certainly imagine having a chicken burrito and renting a bike here.

The other finalist is a proposal from retired former Oregon Historical Society head Chet Orloff, who proposes a museum exploring the development of urban landscapes: what makes Portland and other cities successful as urban places.

In an editorial from today, The Oregonian argues against the museum proposal, saying the "concept is good, but the fit with the waterfront isn't." However, Orloff's proposal is much closer to the original Visitors Center program. It's just that museums don't usually get created to fill a building space. What about either an existing organization or a new one looking for a home?

For example, a Nike executive and some other colleagues I've emailed with a few times have been pushing the idea of a design museum in Portland, one that can showcase green architecture but also sneakers and virtual reality, industrial products or graphics. Or perhaps the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art could open a small outlet there, which could also be coordinated with the very popular Time-Based Art festival. That would give PICA a home for exhibitions it has lacked since closing its gallery in the Wieden + Kennedy building.

The bike proposal is also a valid one in that it'd be very likely to generate foot and pedal traffic, thereby reinvigorating the space. Even so, though they note Bike Republic has an admirable passion, will and capital, the Oregonian editorial doesn't throw its support behind that either.

Instead, the editorial board makes note of John Yeon suggesting in 1986, before his death, that the building should be torn down. "We should have taken his advice," the paper writes. "It was begging for just one last visitor. The wrecking ball."  That's right after they call it a "lovely little jewel", by the way.

If Yeon were still alive today, I doubt he would be calling for his building to be torn down. He was reacting to the changeover of Harbor Drive into Waterfront Park. Now that time has passed, it's a natural to have his structure along the water. But even if Yeon stuck to his guns and favored the wrecking ball, he'd be wrong. 

Artists don't always judge their own work well. 

The only other question, once one of the two proposals has been selected, is who will re-design the space. Who do we trust to update and expand Yeon's vision? Who is a top contemporary architect on his or her own with new structures but can also give new life to an old building? We're not just seeking one match here (the tenant) for the building, but two.

A waterfront observation tower?

Inside a Stephen Beaven report in today's Oregonian, about possible uses for the John Yeon-designed former McCall's Restaurant site beside the Hawthorne Bridge, is a shocker about a possible change to the downtown skyline: a 600-foot observation tower.

The proposal has come from local developer Derek Hanna, who is behind the LEED-rated boat storage facility planned for a waterfront stretch beside the northeast end of the Ross Island Bridge.

According to Beaven's article, Hanna's proposed tower would have a restaurant and observation deck on top and would generate its own energy with wind turbines and solar panels. He proposed the tower be put next to the Yeon building, which would be a front-row seat on the downtown skyline. But that idea has been rejected by the city.

Even so, "Dan is still very interested in seeing this built somewhere near downtown," Brendan Finn, chief of staff to Commissioner Dan Saltzman, told Beaven.

The 600-foot height would make the tower more or less the same height as Seattle's Space Needle. And of course the Space Needle, more than 45 years after the 1962 World's Fair, is still the iconic symbol of that city. So you have to approach the idea of a Portland tower being nearly as much of a presence in the city.

A huge observation tower for Portland sounds to me like the kind of project that could generate a whole lot of buzz but never actually get built. The extra talk about a tower, even if it doesn't happen, gives more attention to Hanna, still a pretty unknown commodity, and for his boat storage facility set to break ground within the next month or so.

That said, what if the tower were to really happen? Where would be the best location, and who might design it?

Hanna hired Mulvanny G2 for the boat storage facility. The proposed design got a mixed reaction from commenters on this site when I wrote about it several weeks ago, although I liked it. What's more, Mulvanny G2's Portland office has at least two very talented, experienced architects on board: Gary Larsen and Eric Cugnart.

Even so, if this tower were really to happen, it'd be essential to have not just a good design, but a great one. I'm not sure if anyone in Portland is capable of that. I'd favor a choice like UN Studio of Rotterdam, or maybe Sir Norman Foster. Who else might be on such a wish list? Or am I under-estimating the tower a Portlander could design? Come to think of it, a Skylab tower could be pretty cool. Or what might a modernist with a healthy appreciation for classicism do, like Thomas Hacker?

And while we're at it, is Portland really an observation tower kind of city? It seems a little frivolous, like the move of a city that needs to show the world how important and colossal it is. I personally love observation towers, though. And they can serve other messages and symbols than arrogance. I personally love 'The Monument' in London, for example (pictured above), which is a simple classical column with an observation point on top that looks out at The City and the Thames; it was constructed as a memorial to the Great Fire of London. If you imagine it that way, maybe the tower could become more Portland. Iraq War memorial tower, anyone? Drexler's Viewpoint?

UPDATE, 8/12: Reader Bill Baldrick also submits this drawing and idea: a combination of the planned pedestrian and MAX bridge over the Willamette with an observation tower and deck on one side (presumably the east). I worry the Marquam Bridge would overshadow the tower itself or block its view of downtown, especially since the bridge has been moved south to better serve South Waterfront instead of downtowners. Even so, as you can see, Baldrick, who is also an architect, has a fun watercolor-rendered imagination.

NW 23rd Avenue garage opposed again: psycho neighbors or a principled stand?

In today's Oregonian, Fred Leeson reports that the Northwest District Association has again gone on record opposing developer Richard Singer's plan for a Holst Architecture-designed garage at NW 23rd and Irving.

The city's Historic Landmarks Commission is reviewing the plan and is expected to address it at their next meeting, on August 11.

This latest redesign, available for viewing here in PDF, comes after the city council urged a confidential mediation between the developer and the neighborhood group. This after previous efforts to find an acceptible version of the garage failed. This time, Singer and Holst cut the amount of cars the garage would hold from 103 to 87, and made the two story building nine feet shorter. It looks pretty much like a storefront for two buildings. But the site faces Irving instead of 23rd, putting it more on the border with the ressidential portion of the area. Juliet Hyams, president of the NW District Association, told Leeson the garage was still too big and that t was a "troubling precedent". 

It's true the garage project would demolish what's left of a house once owned by Julia Hoffman, founder of the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and mother of the founder of Hoffman Construction. (Singer has offered to contribute $25,000 for its removal.) But it seems to be the idea of a garage at all on this site or in this area that's really troubling to them. Is that fair?

I want to be careful about how I characterize the two sides, because it would be wrong to single out residents of a historic neighborhood for wanting to protect its character or questioning a move that caters to cars in such a pedestrian and transit-friendly development. Or to vilify a developer that's tried good-faith negotiations and has hired one of the best architecture firms in town to do the job.

(Singer and Holst are also partnered on the "checkerboard" building renovation downtown that I wrote about yesterday, but it's only coincidence that I'm writing about their efforts two days straight. The two projects are completely unrelated in my mind.)

My personal feeling, however, at least based on what I read is that this is just nuts, and I really side with the garage builders.

When I drive anywhere near NW 23rd, there is such terrible traffic, not only on 23rd and 21st (the other principal retail corridor here) but all the residential side streets, that it always seems ludicrous that there wasn't a garage built a decade ago. I'm not talking about some concrete behemoth like some of the Smart Park garages downtown, but some storefront-like garage that used to be common here and in many parts of the city. That's precisely what Singer and Holst have proposed.

It's true no garage will satisfy all the cars that want to shop on 23rd. But does that necessarily mean the district should essentially look at the traffic problem, cover its ears, and shout, "La-la-la, I'm not listening!"?

In fact, if I lived in the 23rd Avenue area, I'd want the garage even more. Here in Southeast I live next to a popular restaurant and a dance studio, both of which make it often difficult to park in front of or even near my house. If I lived in Northwest, it'd be 10 times worse, in which case I'd practically pray for a 20-story stack of concrete if it'd get these people from infesting every inch of curb. And by the way, in case someone thinks this is all about gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing cars, won't people of the future with electric or fuel cell powered cars need somewhere to park as well?

It will also be interesting to see how the Landmarks Commission tackles this. Rather than the look of the garage itself, it seems like they'll be tackling whether there can or should be a garage at all. Still, garage supporters might want to add a few doilies or a pitched roof to the design just to be safe. That way the historic district's original architecture can be properly caricatured.

But again, I don't want to make this post a rant. I've done enough of that lately, whether it's against immigration foes or the idea of destroying my beloved Checkerboard building. If I'm just a dummy too given to automobile use to fully appreciate the principled, brave stand the Northwest District Association is taking, I urge someone to make that case (politely of course). There are plenty of times I'd side with neighbors of a historic district against a developer wanting to add a parking garage. I'd like to think, in fact, that I'd be on their side an overwhelming majority of the time. But I just don't get what's so awful about this garage, or why it isn't ridiculously overdue.

If you'd like to submit your comments to the Historic Landmarks Commission before their ruling on the garage, email Tim Heron of the City at tim.heron@ci.portland.or.us.

415 SW 10th, Mork from Ork's suspenders, and the meaning of historic preservation

Tyler Graf has an article in Tuesday's Daily Journal of Commerce about the "checkerboard" building downtown on 10th Avenue (around the corner from the Ace Hotel), which is being renovated, but possibly signficantly altered as well, by developer Richard Singer and the excellent Holst Architecture. Graf was nice enough to quote me in the article on this favorite building of mine:

“'Coming around the corner and seeing the checkerboard building always makes me smile,'” Libby said. “'It’s an architectural Rubik’s Cube: fun, colorful and a bit puzzling. I totally love it...If Portland gets even a handsome modern building on that site at the expense of the checkerboard, I think an important and wonderful part of the city and its architectural past will be lost.'”

But Graf also has what may be some editorializing of his own in the first paragraph:

"Even though its design looks like it was rubber-stamped by a 1960s-era architect who, during a pique of deadline pressure, let his five-year-old son design it using nothing more than a limited set of Crayons, the building located on the block surrounded by Southwest Washington Street and Southwest Stark streets and Ninth and 10th avenues is still a bit of a Portland institution. Or at least it is to Brian Libby..."

I'm not writing this post because I got mentioned in Tyler's article, or because he and I may disagree about the aesthetic value of this building. But, after receiving a call from one reader asking what he could do to help save the Checkerboard building, I was reminded of an important point.

Graf speaks of the building being hopelessly out of style. He compares the Checkerboard's signature facade to a pair of rainbow-colored suspenders, presumably like the kind Mork From Ork used to wear on Mork & Mindy. I'm not saying Mork's suspenders will ever come back in style, but one has to take more of a long view with history and preservation.

Societies often rush to preserve buildings that are 100 years old, patting themselves on the back for not tearing them down like the heathens of the generation that preceded them. But then those same people are equally eager to demolish buildings 50 years old because they're out of style or character.

The reason there aren't more historic early 20th century buildings around is because people in the 1950s tore them down while they were preserving stuff from the 1850s. People in 1900 saved stuff from 1800 but scoffed at buildings from the 1850s. Obviously I'm over-simplifying here, but this is a general tendency that many historic preservation experts have told to me time and time again.

Of course not every midcentury modern building must be saved. But if you drive around Portland looking for mid-1900s architecture with panel systems like the Checkerboard's, there are fewer and fewer all the time, and none with the Checkerboard's sense of color. Some might find that kind of rainbow-suspender look outdated. But why not give your grandchildren a chance to decide?

ZGF and Gerding/Edlen vie with Cesar Pelli and Houston developer for San Diego city hall comission

Gerding Edlen Development and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership have been shortlisted for a new multi-block city hall project in San Diego, as previously reported by the Daily Journal of Commerce's Sam Bennett. The Portland team is a co-finalist with Houston developer Hines and its architect, Cesar Pelli.

Although Pelli is a better known name than ZGF, the Gerding/ZGF proposal is significantly more ambitious than Pelli's plan with Hines.

The Rose City team proposes a three-phase, public/private partnership that would in its first phase include a LEED Platinum-rated 34-story city hall with ground-floor retail, completed by 2013. The second phase, would have a 23 story tower with housing and ground-floor retail as well as an adjacent a 24-story office tower including a hotel or residential component, and a ground-floor grocery store. Phase three, completed in 2018, would have a 30-story residential tower with office and retail, underground parking and a fire station.

Hines, on the other hand, has proposed a 19-story office building and a four-story glass encased city hall with a public patio on top.

San Diego's city government nearly went bankrupt a few years ago, so there's an argument to be made for the conservative approach. But is a city hall project, when you have the chance to make the emblem for a city, the time to be conservative? Plus Gerding has shown that a huge component of architecture's success is its place-making. It's not like San Diego would have to commit to this mammoth six-block proposal all at once. But, taking a page from Portland, at least they'd have a good plan from which to go forth as the economy hopefully will have long since improved by these dates several years from now.

Meanwhile, if one were to judge by this rendering, of the 34-story city hall complex ZGF is proposing, what is the verdict on the look? At first glance I find it compelling, a bit like a clipper ship sail, which of course is very San Diego. (The NBA's Clippers once resided there; it's where Bill Walton went when he left the Blazers.) But it's restrained and not at all garish, either. There is a ton of glass, and the patterns seem to lie somewhere between the fractal patterns that have been fashionable of late (thanks to advances in window system technology) and the more linear, symmetrical patterns of previous modern architecture.

ZGF has already had several big, high profile institutional projects in Southern California, such as the California Science Center, and a very striking Food & Drug Administration complex in Irvine. And of course Gerding Edlen has some condo towers sprouting in La-La-Land.

Pelli, of course, designed the World Financial Center buildings that surrounded the World Trade Center in New York, as well as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which at least for awhile were the tallest buildings in the world.

In an interview I did with Pelli in late 2001 for Salon just a few weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, he argued that while the event was of course tragic, lower Manhattan actually looked more "handsome" without the WTC. I didn't say anything in the interview, but I totally disagreed and still do. I think the simplicity of the Trade Center design was wonderful, and when I was in college as a freshman, I was thrilled having a view of the towers from my dorm window at 10th and Broadway.

Skylab tower cuts 18 stories (but still looks great)

As Mike Thelin previously reported on his Burnside Blog for Portland Spaces, Skylab Architecture (previously known as Skylab Design) has unveiled a redesigned version of its proposed 27-story office and condo project at West Burnside and 13th that is only 9 stories. As you can surely guess, the down-turned condo market is to blame. But now the 409 tower, as it's officially known, will be an office building with ground-floor retail. Even so, the look remains dramatic, with an angular and jewel like facade of metal and glass.

I've always loved boxy modern architecture, from Mies Van Der Rohe's Farnsworth House to Holst's upcoming Ziba Design headquarters in the Pearl. However, the technologies available to architects today are really making for a new era of contemporary architecture in which facades can jut and jive in countless directions. And I don't mean the billowy blobs of sculpted titanium that Frank Gehry has employed to great success (Guggenheim Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall) and hideous failure (Experience Music Project). I'm talking about real buildings that people live and work in. These spaces are beginning take on more dramatic geometry while keeping useful things Gehry doesn't, like windows and floors. It's a kind of post-postmodern modernism, if you will: retaining modernism's beauty and integrity but postmodernism's greater sense of playfulness and formal variety.

The other question about this bold new tower, assuming it gets built, is how it might change the career of Skylab lead architect and founder Jeff Kovel. When I wrote an Oregonian cover story for the A&E a couple months ago on the top people in the local architecture scene, Jeff was one of the automatic people I put on the list right away along with Brad Cloepfil, John Holmes of Holst, Bill Neburka and Carrie Schilling of Works Partnership, and Gene Sandoval of ZGF. But Skylab has largely paid its bills doing houses and boutique retail/food & drink outlets. Might their tower at 13th and Burnside, diminutive as it compared to the building's 27-story predecessor, be what pushes Skylab into bigger commissions for larger clients and developers?

Jeff Kovel has had to scratch and claw his way up the ladder by self-generating and developing some of Skylab's most significant work. "I started this company from scratch without clients at 26," the architect told me for the Oregonian story. "That’s a path that’s different than leaving a company you’ve been a partner at for 20 years and starting an architecture firm. I guess you could say fluidly in the sense that it’s been a sequential process. Each project opens us up to a new audience. We’ve been able to sort of reverse engineer the theory to it."

Back when it was still going to be 27 stories, the idea behind Skylab's 409 tower was to have some combination of condo and hotel. But, as Jeff prophetically put it then, "The financial landscape has been changing, and we’ve been nimble and able to change with it. Things are taking a little longer now, but I think it’s for the better. There’s no way we’re not going to build something on that site, but will it be six months or three years? But we’re holding onto the land. I think we can perform really well at that scale. The reality is there isn’t a lot of opportunity being handed to people in this town. I’ve been very forward about going after it. That’s a distinction between most of us in town. Half of our best projects we were developer architect. That’s been a way to accelerate the firm but it’s also a logical step. So much of being an architect seems to be about being to holistically able to problem solve and create."

I wouldn't want Skylab to stop developing or co-developing its own projects. But once the condo market returns (and I'm sure it will), isn't it about time some big local developer handed the keys to Jeff and his crew?