Funeral services are being held later today to mark the untimely passing of Pamela Webb, a local architect, artist, curator, civic leader and much more.
The daughter of a military man, Webb lived in a variety of locations as a child before heading to Harvard University, where she earned an anthropology degree in 1966. She began working as an artist and potter, and moved with her husband to Portland in 1972. A few years later, Webb co-founded Blackfish Gallery, an artists' cooperative space still running today.
In 1981, Webb headed back to school to become an architect. She was a member of the first class at the Oregon School of Design, Portland's first architecture school. Over the ensuing decades, she designed many significant buildings across the state: the Warm Springs Early Childhood Learning Center in Central Oregon, Seaside City Hall on the coast, and the Forest Heights community in Portland. For the latter project's first multifamily housing, Austen Row, she also won a local AIA design award. She was also one of the architects for the very popular Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade.
An active community member, Webb also served on the board of Tri-Met, was president of the Harvard Club of Oregon, a board member of the American Institute of Architects Oregon chapter.
Ever the renaissance woman, In recent years, Webb branched off from architecture to create jewelry as well as specialized decorative fused-glass windows and plates. And she even wrote a children's book, which has been accepted by Blue Apple Books for posthumous publication.
Although gender makeup at architecture schools is today roughly even between women and men, this is still somewhat of a male-dominated or at least male-heavy profession. Many women seem to choose interior design over architecture, and there's obviously nothing wrong with that. But the lower rates of women working as architects made Pamela Webb all the more important as a role model to other young female designers.
Contributions in Pamela's name are welcomed at Havurah Shalom in Portland, or the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech University, which will house her professional papers.
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