Alfred Staehli: 1929-2009

The Portland architecture and historic preservation communities lost one of their most accomplished members this week when Alfred M. Staehli passed away on Monday, May 4, six months shy of his 80th birthday.

Born in Pasadena to an immigrant Swiss woodcarver but a Portlander singe the age of 2, Staehli graduated from Lincoln High School, then received an architecture degree from the University of Oregon. After serving in the Air Force in the early 1950s, he worked for ten years at Broome, Selig and Oringdulph, which would later morph into a firm still around today, BOORA.

However, it's after Staehli went back to school for a master's degree in history from Portland State University and in Rome at the International Centre for Conservation that the architect found his calling as a historic preservationist.

Staehli would go on to play a key role in saving such Oregon landmarks as Crater Lake Lodge, the Pittock Mansion, and the Kam Wah Chung building in John Day. He was a consultant for restorations of the Capitol dome in Salem as well as for the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission. He also served on the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation for two terms.

"Not only was Al an incredible resource for historic preservation issues, but more important to my relationship with him was his wry sense of humor and always challenging assumptions!  I guess as an educator he never feared asking  'Why not reinvent the wheel?” on any particular issue," said Henry Kunowski, a former colleague of Staehli's, by email.

Staehli was inducted into the American Institute of Architects' College of Fellows (the profession's highest honor, a quasi-hall of fame) in 1992. He also acted as an archivist. The photos you see here of the Lewis & Clark Exposition in Portland were part of his collection.

It's through his involvement with the Fellows that I got to know Staehli in 1999 and 2000 while I worked for the AIA. I used to take notes for the monthly Fellows committee meetings he attended, and it was fun to sit in a conference room and listen to some of the most accomplished architects in the city alternately chitchat, talk shop, tell stories about the city's architectural past, or target some kind of do-gooding action like trying to help Portland State get accreditation for its architecture school.

I got to know Al better when the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Gordon House was threatened with demolition in late 2000. He and I spent a day together down in suburban Charbonneau along the banks of the Willamette near Wilsonville, where the house was originally located. The compromise for the Gordon House was that it got preserved but had to be disassembled and moved to a different location. It was a better solution than outright demolition, but the house had been designed specifically in accordance with and to take advantage of the views of the river and Mt. Hood.

Staehli asked me to act as an assistant for the day while he photographed the Gordon House with a large-format camera, the kind great, serious photographers from Ansel Adams to Julius Schulman always used. Even today that kind of camera achieves better precision than digital photography, but it takes forever just to set up one shot.

My memory of that day out there with Al is not of the things we said to each other, but the silence in between. It's rare you can stand in silence with someone, particularly if you're not already well acquainted, and have it not be awkward. But there was a kind of serenity out there photographing the Wright house on the eve of it being eradicated from its intended place. At least if it had to go, the two of us were at least lucky enough to spend a day with the Gordon House, alone.

But of course he wasn't mute, either. I also took notes when we did talk while photographing the Gordon House that day, and used some of his comments in a piece for Willamette Week. Here's one of his observations published in the story:

"Wright's houses are delightful to walk into. Unlike in most McMansions (or what I call 'big-hair houses'), you don't walk into some totally inappropriate corporate-sized lobby where you feel lost. You enter this house through a small, constricted opening with a low ceiling and transition into a dramatic high-ceiling area. You always have a sense of moving through a sequence of different-scaled spaces. Wright's Usonian houses are of a scale that you can live in. I'm not the kind of architect who could design, say, a 600-square-foot bathroom, so I relate to these designs.

Wright was especially known for using wood and masonry for their color, their texture, their warmth. A lot of the Northwest-style architects like Walter Gordon and Pietro Belluschi did that, too. People here like to be able to look out the window to the trees but also have a cozy feel on the inside.

You would not find this kind of detail in most builder-made houses today--it would be too expensive and require more attention to detailing. But that's exactly what some architects are now arguing for: more modest-sized spaces but spending the money on finish and detail and materials.

We're losing landmarks monthly throughout the state. A little bit goes here, a little bit there, and first thing you know you've lost the integrity of the land. It isn't as if this was one of Wright's major buildings, but in the context of surviving Usonian homes it's actually very important. And it's definitely the only work of its kind in Oregon."

I only talked to Al Staehli once or twice in the ensuing nine years, and even then only briefly. So it's not like I knew the guy exceptionally well. But when I put together the incredible collection of buildings he is credited with helping to save and his gentle, warm, guileless personal manner, it's a major regret to have to say goodbye - or to not have done so with more reverence.

Comments

[Valentij]

Those pictures of the Lewis & Clark Exposition always make me sad. Those and the pictures of all the old cast iron buildings that were torn down.

[Scott]

Totally...the cast iron loss is so depressing...the old photos of the district make it look like a beautiful european city...so sad...the exposition losses are sad, but somewhat understandable...most of those structures were build to be temporary...it's sadly typical that they are torn down afterward. i believe the only surviving building from an expo i've seen (other than the St. John's McMenamins) is the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It is interesting to think how it would look to have some of them still around in pdx today...they were quite beautiful. granted, if they had been around in the dark ages (60's and 70's) they would have been torn down for parking lots and freeway on-ramps.

[eenie]

There are--or were--a couple of notable exposition buildings in San Francisco, as well: the Palace of Fine Arts, which now houses the Exploratorium, was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, and in Golden Gate Park both the original building housing the de Young Museum (replaced in 2005 by the new Herzog & deMeuron-designed building) and a portion of the Academy of Sciences building were built for an 1894 exposition.

It's amazing that those buildings have managed to last as long as they have.

[Scott]

Right...forgot about those...I believe they're still there...I've never actually been to SF to see them :-)

[Sue Staehli]

Thanks, Brian. Very well written piece about the dad I knew and loved.

[Jim Heuer]

A very nice and richly deserved tribute to one of Portland's stalwarts in the Historic Preservation Movement. We met Al when he was a member of the State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation and we were going through the rather daunting process of nominating our home for the National Register of Historic Places.

Al performed the on-site review and led a lot of the discussion during the hearing on the nomination. There were a number of nominations reviewed that day, and Al showed his determination that they should be prepared to a high standard of scholarship and clearly demonstrate the value of the buildings to our regional history. He sent some of the applicants that day back to re-work their nominations -- and we were greatly relieved when he voted for ours to be approved with only minor changes.

Everyone in the Preservation community mourns his passing.

On the previous comments regarding the buildings at the Lewis and Clark Expo of 1905, you're right that most were intended to be temporary. The one glorious, and now much lamented, example that was intended to be permanent was the Forestry Building -- a fantasy of custom cut, giant Douglas Fir logs with their bark left on, designed by A. E. Doyle (of Riverdale School fame). Alas, Portland didn't realize what a treasure it was, the City Council refused to vote money for a sprinkler system, and in 1964 it burned to the ground in a fire of suspicious origins.

[Paul Falsetto]

Thank you, Brian, for sharing such a nice tribute to Al Staehl. It was my pleasure to have known Al for a dozen years serving as members of the AIA Historic Resources Committee, in which he was a very active participant. Al really was the first of his kind – an architect that had a learned specialty in preserving historic structures. His architecture training allowed him to understand all the usual requirements for buildings, and his training in Italy gave him insight into specific preservation techniques. All this combined with a very bright mind and a detail-oriented nature to produce what many of us consider to be the prototype within the profession – Al Staehl.
His wry wit and unassuming nature belied his standing in the field and his quality and quantity of work. A few years back I was working on Old College Hall at Pacific University, preparing it to move to a new location on the campus. I found out that Al wrote an early preservation plan for the building, and asked if he would share any insight on it. He graciously welcomed me into his house and down in the basement, where boxes upon boxes of his project archives were stored. His report on Old College Hall was top notch, and Al showed me a few others of his impressive projects. I am happy to say that his archive of professional work is now at the University of Oregon, were it will inform numerous future rehabilitations and provide a masterful standard for all of us to strive towards.
Al will definitely be missed, but his contributions to our region and profession will live on.

[Mike Francis]

What I remember best about Al was the time he gave a slide show at a Historic Preservation League of Oregon board meeting. It consisted of pictures he'd taken inside the original kitchen of a Ladd's Addition home he'd been invited to see.

To the average person, it might have looked like a cramped, charmless, outdated utilitarian space, but to Al, it was testimony to the way Portlanders used to live, with every square inch designed precisely for the purpose it served. He had a marvelous eye and a gift for sharing his appreciation, and Portland is a better place for it.

[Amanda Cornwall]

Many, many respectful thanks from a grand-niece.

[Judy Gerrard]

I remember Al from my days on the Board at HPLO. He was constant in his leadership, forever giving of his knowledge, and purposeful in his passion about the heritage of our built environment. I just found some videotape footage from the 1980s - a series of Rehab Oregon Right workshops. I saw Al in the crowd asking questions to encourage everyone's learning. The tapes are headed to the UO Historic Preservation Program. I was looking on the internet to make sure I spelled Al's name correctly, and was saddened to find this news of his passing.