A friendly ideological clash over dinner: Pietro Belluschi meets Michael Graves

Today I spent a couple hours talking with local architect Saul Zaik, who's career in Portland dates back to the early 1950s. Now 82, he's designed some of the most gorgeous houses in the city, particularly those built in the 1950s through '70s. A  timeline of seminal moments in local residential architecture by Bart King in the Portland Spaces debut issue a few months ago, for example, made particular note of Zaik's Zidell House, which has a unique octagonal shape from its West Hills perch and was built from a ship's mast.

 

For the story I'm working on about Saul, he brought out some old photos of his projects as well as snapshots with other architects. The photo here (which unfortunately was scanned from a photocopy of the original, so it's poor quality) was taken at a dinner party Zaik attended that was thrown by another great mid-century Portland architect, John Storrs (responsible for the Forestry Center in Portland, Salishan on the Oregon coast). According to Zaik, "Storrs loved to cook."

 

In case it isn't clear in the photo, that's Michael Graves on the left, sticking his tongue out at Belluschi. Graves was here for the design of the Portland Building, the first major postmodern-styled building in the United States (or perhaps the world). The legendary Portland-based Belluschi, the pre-eminent architect of the Northwest Modern midcentury style, was outspoken in his opposition to Graves's wacky postmodern design for the Portland Building, with its faux garlands and playful classical allusions. 

 

In an exchange that Winston Churchill might have dreamed up, Belluschi is said to have warned the Portland Building would set back architecture by fifty years. That, Graves is said to have replied, is exactly what architecture needs.

 

If anybody reading this recalls more about the Belluschi-Graves exchanges, I encourage you to email me (brianlibby@hotmail.com), and I can incorporate more info into the post.

Comments

[juan]

is this what provoked the post?:

Revisiting Postmodernism
Michael Graves in Conversation with Stan Allen and Sarah Whiting
Wednesday, September 24
6:00 p.m.
Betts Auditorium, Princeton University

http://www.archleague.org/index-dynamic.php?show=812

[Brian Libby]

No, I wrote the post a couple days after that lecture, which I also wasn't aware of. Would love to hear Graves' thoughts about postmodernism, but I don't usually fly to New Jersey for lectures. Is it available online?

[oula]

the photo of graves with his tounge out at belluschi reminded me there is a great photo of pietro belluschi looking at a model of the portland building in disgust.