Memorial Coliseum listed on National Register, and notes from the first Rose Quarter advisory committee meeting

Tuesday of this week was a big day in the history of Memorial Coliseum. Maybe the biggest since Clyde the Glide dueled with MJ.

First, media outlets began reporting by midday that the building had received a listing on the National Register of Historic Places from the National Park Service, giving the 1960 structure protection as a landmark of enduring architectural merit and historic significance. (Congratulations and thanks to architect Peter Meijer and his colleague Kristin Minor for writing the nomination.)

Later on Tuesday afternoon at City Hall, the first meeting was held by the Rose Quarter Development Project Stakeholder Advisory Committee, charged by the city with determining a future use for both Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Quarter overall. The meeting, held in City Council chambers, was chaired by Mayor Sam Adams.

First, the National Register listing. For those who have worked over these past several months to protect Memorial Coliseum since it was first threatened with demolition to make way for a minor-league baseball stadium (a plan since abandoned), it's time to pop the champagne cork. Memorial Coliseum is, according to a wide swath of experts at the national, local and state level, a landmark work of architecture worth preserving. It follows in the same line of preserved Portland landmarks like the Pittock Mansion, the Portland Armory, Central Library, and the Ladd Carriage House, all local treasures that were at one time threatened.

Our city doesn't have a perfect record of historic preservation. To save the Coliseum, though, is a bold statement that Portland is different. Not many American cities save their old arenas once they're replaced. That Portland plans to give the Coliseum new life is a gesture not only a pioneering spirit, but of sustainable values. And we're supposed to be running for the title of America's greenest city.

Some people out there ask, what's so great about Memorial Coliseum? Why preserve it? Several reasons. It's unique in the world as an entirely glass-covered arena that, with the curtain around the seating bowl open, can be flooded with natural light. You can sit in the so-called worst seats at Memorial Coliseum and have something people in the front row don't: a view of the entire downtown Portland skyline. Unfortunately, though, even native Oregonians who grew up going to Blazer games and rock concerts there largely have never experienced Memorial Coliseum in this way.

A few weeks ago I visited the City of Portland archives and found a folder full of correspondence between civic leaders and community members about what to name the building. One of the runners-up to the name Memorial Coliseum I find fittingly descriptive: "The Glass Palace".

The whole concept behind Memorial Coliseum's design, says Bill Rouzie, one of the designers of Memorial Coliseum for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was to give the arena a sense of transparency and connection to the outside - something anathema to most large performance spaces. "We were thinking, we’ve got this oval bowl that is going to sit in a glass box," the architect recalls. "When you’re in the bowl looking at something happening, you can either have light or not with the control of the curtain. To get out of there, or at halftime, you walk out into a space and instead of being in some blind corridor, you come out and you’ve got glass and you can see the city. You know where you are, and whether it’s day or night." 

"That was the whole point of the design," Rouzie adds. "You never feel lost there. I can even get lost in some of the buildings I've designed, especially the hospitals. But not the Coliseum."

What's more, Memorial Coliseum has a pureness of design though few other buildings achieve. It's simply a bowl in a box. You can draw the basic form in less than three seconds: a square with an open half-oval inside. You can see the building's basic form from blocks away. It's a visual language of modern architecture - glass and steel - but the Coliseum has a touch of classical symmetry ascribed to the great buildings of ancient Greece and Rome.

Then there's the fact that Memorial Coliseum (pictured below in a shot by Jeremy Bitterman) was designed by one of the great American architecture firms of the 20th Century: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects behind the Sears Tower in Chicago, Lever House in New York, and Oregon buildings like the Standard Plaza in Portland and Autzen Stadium in Eugene. They're also designing the Freedom Tower in New York (with Daniel Liebeskind), replacement for the World Trade Center.

It was just hours after reports of the the National Register listing began running that the Rose Quarter Stakeholder Advisory Committee met at City Hall. There are 32 members of the committee. If you've ever held a meeting in a big conference room where everyone wants and needs to weigh in, you know having that many people on the committee will be challenging. But the plus side to a large committee is many people have a voice, including members of organizations like the Urban League, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and the American Institute of Architects as well as neighborhood activists and even a kid attending public school in Portland, Jules Renaud.

Not much happened at the first SAC meeting, mostly just a meet and greet. In his opening remarks to the committee, Mayor Adams said, "We are better situated than ever before," to successfully transform the Rose Quarter. His reasoning? Portland now has experience in successfully redeveloping neighborhoods like the Pearl and South Waterfront. There is a transit confluence at the Rose Quarter as well, with streetcars set to join the existing MAX train and bus hub.

When asked, Adams also said, "I am not committed to saving the bowl," but he does want the exterior glass perimeter to remain "largely intact."

The committee took time for each member to express his or her initial concern going into this series of 20 meeting sessions. It proved somewhat fruitful as a beginning point for generating ideas and forming collective values. Among the comments and concerns I jotted down were:

• The economic and scale issues associated with having two large arenas
• Physical barriers like the railroad running along the river 
• Mobility for cyclists and pedestrians
• How Rose Quarter events match up with locals' leisure time preferences
• Whether to restore the street grid that predated the Coliseum/RQ
• How this relates to (and jives with) the revitalization of NE Broadway
• The results of previous Memorial Coliseum and Rose Quarter studies
• The inclusion of minorities and small businesses in renovation plans
• Celebrating the history of the neighborhood that used to exist here
• Family friendliness
• Honoring veterans
• Sustainability

Comments

[MarkGMan]

Why not make it a market place, our version of Pike Place? It could include urban farm demonstrations, and almost act as a giant greenhouse. Just a thought.

[Douglas K.]

My thought: why change the Coliseum's function? Keep it as an arena, with fewer but larger seats. (The current seats are really cramped, having been built for 1950's-vintage American butts.) With 8,000 to 9,000 seats, it would be a great permanent venue for the Winter Hawks (36 home games a year) and a WNBA team (17 home games a year). WNBA games normally draw around 8,000 people, which would make the Coliseum a perfectly sized venue if someone were to bring women's basketball back to town.

As a concert venue, it would be ideal for concerts that are expected to draw from 4,000 to 10,000 people ... too large for the Keller Auditorium; but far too small for the Rose Garden.

Between various sporting events, concerts, and political rallies, it shouldn't be that hard to fill the arena at least two nights a week throughout the year.

[Mudd]

Yeah, I really hope the bowl is saved. It is a core design element that makes it a historically significant building. If you demolish the bowl and keep the skin/shell, I think it would be a preservation failure - you might as well demolish the whole building. In my humble opinion, the shell is not historically significant without the bowl inside it. I hope the fight to keep the building isn't over and that people continue to fight for the whole building.

[billb]

Great idea MarkGMan ! , one giant foodie marketplace , dry and warm 12 months a year , lots of truck /loading for farmers , lots of parking [paid] , bring in a petting zoo so kids can learn about animals besides the cat. Then set up tons of food booths. A great place to bring tourists and out-of-towners.
PS Mr Mayor , the Bowl is integral to the Architecture ,
celebrate it ! I did an Artwork imagining the MC as a city garden with each seat turned into a personal planter for all our Portland Gardeners. They come down often to care for their plant , hang out , do tea!

[ws]

I really would like for Portland to somewhere have a large horticultural conservatory, but despite its expansive glass walls, the building doesn't seem as though it would adapt well to that idea. Such a conservatory/greenhouse needs a glass on top too.

Th MC looks great in the picture above, gracefully commanding the surrounding area. It seems amazing that the Rose Garden arena was able to be stuffed in alongside it. Decisions like this seem to be a part of the price of having the city host a major league sports team.

The MC's design and the site it's located on could have made it part of a great performance art center for Portland on the order of Lincoln Center in NYC. In fact, talking 'blue sky' that's what probably still should happen; move the Blazers out to Delta Park to a new arena, remove the RG, then expand and refit the MC for the great variety of creative expression represented by the performing arts genre; dance, theater, music, opera and art.

[Eric Cantona]

i've advocated for essentially the same thing that Douglas K. talks about upstream. one other possibility to add would be the PSU basketball program.

and no, TA faithful, this scenario will not compete w/ the RG, and will not cause Paul Allen to take his team and go home. what it would do, is provide more paying customers in the vicinity of whatever hokey "entertainment district" they come up with.

[Jeff]

I completely agree with the first post by Douglas K. although I would set the capacity at an even 10,000.

The Winterhawks don't draw well enough - being a minor league team - to be filling the Rose Garden arena. A renovated 10,000 seat MC will keep them in town.

Bands that attract 3,000 to 10,000 people will have a remodeled arena to perform - in addition to other performing acts that may draw a similar amount - the Circus, DEW events, graduations, famous speakers, etc. The Seattle area has two of these smaller-style arenas in Everett and Kent.

A large and mid-sized arena adjacent to each other creates some synergy of use. These two arenas work well in conjunction with each other - the US Figure Skating championships were held in PDX a few years ago as they liked the idea of the two arenas next to each other as did the US Davis Cup tennis.

Turning the MC into a large bowl of fruit stands and craft booths I don't believe would be good. When the entire Rose Quarter gets redeveloped with new buildings - a Farmer's market could be located closer to the river next to a new boat ramp.

[Greg]

Although I was against MC's preservation, what's done is done, and I completely agree with Douglas, Eric, and others that they should keep the MC in its present form and just bring it up to date. Some possibilities:

-Update the scoreboard
-Reduce seating capacity, add some suites (if possible)
-Widen the hockey rink to standard size (again, if feasible)
-Definitely make it friendly for PSU basketball
-Do something creative and different with the exhibit halls which are clearly not needed
-Make sure that the financial arrangements dovetails so that it doesn't create an adversarial relationship with the convention center or the (privately funded) Rose Garden
-Preserve the ability of MC to cohost events with the Rose Quarter (conventions, Davis Cup, hopefully an NBA All Star Game someday, etc.)
-And yes, try to make it environmentally friendly (leverage PSU on that front)

[Marc Hull]

Great picture. Too bad all that concrete couldn't have been put on the national historic register, too. They don't make it like that any more. Really harkens back to some of the great parking lots of Greece and Rome.

[Brian Libby]

That is really funny, Marc - bravo! I'm glad to hear you don't have a criticism of the building itself. And you do bring up an important point: that there is plenty to fine-tune and change around the building without ruining the greatness of the building itself.