Portland Architecture

Two handsome old downtown buildings, but only one may survive

Culver Building (photo by Josh Partee)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

The Culver building at SW 12th and Alder has long kept a discrete profile, its ground-floor dry cleaning business one of the only visible retailers and an adjacent surface parking lot sucking away most any pedestrian vitality. But as the West End has grown in recent years as a kind of extension of the Pearl District just across Burnside, gaining restaurants, offices and condos, the case improved for remaking and expanding the Culver. Which is what the team of GBD Architects and contractor/client Lease Crutcher Lewis has done, adding a new third floor for LCL's offices and giving the overall historic structure fresh life.

Built in 1920, the Culver and the land underneath it are owned by the Goodman family, which also owns a host of properties around the central city, mostly surface parking lots, but has slowly been going about developing them into buildings such as 12 West, the massive office and apartment tower just across 12th Avenue from the Culver. This project had Lease Crutcher Lewis agreeing to a long-term lease to make the Culver its headquarters, and GBD overseeing a renovation that blended historic preservation and sustainability goals. Designed to meet LEED Silver specifications, its interior was reconstructed using a host of reclaimed materials as well as modern windows and insulation to make it as efficient as possible.

Although in its new incarnation the Culver is a kind of hybrid, its glassy penthouse paired with the historic two-story structure, the Culver exemplifies what architects commonly call a "fabric" building, a square in the overall quilt of buildings comprising the downtown core. When we lose one of these fabric buildings, maybe it isn't as big a tragedy as losing a major landmark, but the overall downtown fabric is important to the character, history and aesthetics of the city. Without them, Portland becomes a place without much of a discernable past, like Dresden or Las Vegas.

Penthouse deck at Culver Building (photo by Josh Partee)

"The intersection of SW 12th and SW Alder, for me, is now a really interesting architectural intersection of Portland," explains Agustin Enriquez of GBD. "We talked a lot during the design phase about approaches to repurposing old buildings. That intersection has three very different--and equally valid--solutions.  The First Presbyterian Church is a beautiful old building.  It is maintained well and is a great example of a very traditional approach to historic preservation.  The building directly across the street to the west is of a similar vintage as the Culver Building, but was radically transformed by Skylab in 2007.  It's an old building that a completely fresh breath was infused into.  Since those two design strategies existed quite literally across the street--make an old building new by keeping it old and making an old building new by making it completely new, we thought it could make for an interesting dialogue to combine those approaches into a third option, making an old building old and new simultaneously."  

"What makes the renovation and addition work at the Culver Building was it retained just enough detailing from its original construction that as architects we just don’t do a lot of anymore - details like the medallions at the top of the building and the brick trim work. You just can’t design history.  A building is either old and lived a life with the patina of a century of use or it isn’t," Enriquez continued. "I suppose it could kind of be faked, but it would be a parody of itself and, frankly, I wouldn’t know how to do that.  The team’s effort was to retain as much of that history as possible: the funky quality of the exposed wood timbers for example, and be very clear about when we were doing something new to the building.  I think we all felt like the finished building was special precisely because we let the old be old, made the new new, and allow everyone to see that relationship.

While standing on the Culver's third-floor penthouse deck a few days ago, the view down 12th Avenue was one of a street emerging from decades of slumber with a succession of retail and a growing sense architectural diversity. The Goodman family and their development company, Downtown Development Group, seem to grasp how the mix of new and old buildings, small and large ones, give an urban setting its vitality - making for places people want to congregate.

But amidst the success of this renovation, I also thought of another old building just a few blocks down Alder Street that seems to be facing a much darker fate. Recently it was reported that the Cornelius Hotel building at SW Alder and Park may be demolished by its owner, TMT Development.

Cornelius Hotel (photo by Brian Libby)

Completed in 1908 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, the Cornelius boasts an elegant French Renaissance style and is one of the last remaining downtown buildings with a mansard-style roof. It was designed by Bennes, Hendricks, and Tobey, and principal John Bennes designed much of the Oregon State University campus as well as numerous Portland buildings and homes, including Portland's now historic Hollywood Theatre.

"While certainly never as large or as grand as the Portland Hotel, Benson Hotel, or the Multnomah Hotel, the Cornelius has stood for more than 100 years as a testament to Portland’s aspirations as a growing city after the 1905 Lewis & Clark Exposition," writes the Architectural Heritage Center's Val Ballestrem on the Portland Preservation blog.

As recently as 2008, TMT Development had eyes the Cornelius for a boutique hotel conversion, and it's easy to see why. The Cornelius is ideally situated for taking advantage of downtown Portland as a tourist; it's less than half a block from the city's biggest cart pod area, with attractions like Powell's Books, the Portland Art Museum, and Pioneer Courthouse Square all within just a few minutes' stroll. But the hotel plan fell through during the Great Recession, and more recently TMT has unsuccessfully sought to partner with the city to make the building a haven for homeless veterans.

Cornelius Hotel (photo by Brian Libby)

"We've been working with (the city) for the last several years so we can maintain the building until we can get a tenant that's a good user," TMT President Vanessa Sturgeon told The Oregonian's Elliot Njus, but "a lot of smart developers haven't been able to find a way to make this project pencil."

TMT is the company behind the disastrous Park Avenue West project, an intended mixed-use tower that has instead languished for years as a hole in the ground, its construction halted in the early stages of the first Obama administration. Although TMT's founder, Tom Moyer, has been responsible for a host of Portland buildings including the Fox Tower, its reputation has already been substantially decimated by the inability to climb out of its Park Avenue West hole.

But while the Cornelius admittedly has its troubles, with fire and water damage helping to deliver a dreaded "U" sign in its windows marking it as unsafe amidst numerous code violations, demolishing it would be a further blight on this developer's record.

Culver Building (photo by Brian Libby)

Moyer once was part of an effort to connect the North and South Park Blocks, which would have created one long strip of downtown green space, comparable to Barcelona's Las Ramblas, but also would have knocked down several historic buildings in its path. It's as if TMT is trying to rekindle that defeated effort by single-handedly demolishing the historic architecture of Park Avenue.

One can't make a direct comparison between the Culver building's successful renovation and the Cornelius Hotel's unsuccessful one, for the two buildings had different sets of conditions - different levels of disrepair. It's probably more expensive to restore the Cornelius with its bigger scale and bigger structural problems. Even so, TMT bought the Cornelius for just $2.4 million back in 2002. Even if restoring the building requires capital the company itself doesn't have or can't borrow, wouldn't the seven stories of units provide more than that investment in continuing revenue once it's restored?

That said, there may still be hope for the homeless veterans' housing.  Central City Concern and Guardian Development, the organizations partnering on that plan, saw their efforts fizzle after losing out on funds from the Portland Housing Bureau. But according to Njus's story, there are other funds available: $2.4 million in federal historic tax credits; $850,000 in contributions from the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and $7.8 million from the sale of federal low income housing tax credits.

All of which is plenty of reason for the City Council to deny TMT Development's demolition request; the National Register listing means Council has a chance to decide its fate. Those interested in seeing the building saved would be advised to contact Council members including Steve Novick, Nick Fish, Dan Saltzman, Amanda Fritz, and Mayor Charlie Hales.

Nearly every time I write a post about threats to a historic building, some exasperated reader leaves a comment reminding me/us that we can't expect the city to retain every old structure. It's naive and pointless, the argument goes, to expect aging architecture to always pencil out as a worthwhile contemporary investment. Maybe that's true as an abstract idea - we can't treat architecture as charity, or every old design as a masterpiece or signifier of history. And indeed, Portland will go on just fine if the Cornelius meets the wrecking ball. Yet conversely, TMT Development can't expect one to look upon their latest downtown development disaster and encourage more decimation. Nor can one look out from the deck of the Culver building a few short blocks away without seeing the value in our fabric of old buildings: a value in the cultural vitality they bring and, in turn, the economics that follow.

 

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UO students imagine public space - and their own careers

Scott Winters' Bellingham Museum of Energy & Environmental Sciences (courtesy UO)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week I visited the University of Oregon's White Stag building for what is an annual ritual: architecture students presenting their thesis projects. At the invitation of UO professor Gerry Gast, I perused the work of his graduate-level architecture studio class entitled "The Urban Stage."

Each year the event poses a dilemma: if one attends an official student presentation, there is the chance to hear in depth for up to an hour the ideas, details and inspirations behind a project. But with 16 students per class, and work from two other classes on display (Biosynergies Thesis Studio with professor Nancy Cheng and Regenerative Design Thesis Studio with professor Hajo Neis), if one only has a couple of hours to devote, that leaves time to hear maybe two presentations and none left to see other students' work. In the past I'd done the former, listening to a couple in-depth student presentations. This time I chose to wander on my own perusing all the students' work, although I found myself missing students' insight into their work.

[In full disclosure, the University of Oregon's architecture department is a Portland Architecture sponsor.]

Gast has been teaching at the University of Oregon since 1994, and has taught this public-buildings class for the past eight years. I asked him if students had changed much in that time. "There has been a remarkably small change in student attitudes. All architecture students tend to be filled with idealism and enthusiasm. That has never really waned," he says. "There’s been the ups and downs of the economy, but they are still very optimistic. I think that’s true of students in all fields: even though the jobs have been cut back, they’re confident in their career choice. We have maybe seen since '08 a little more interest in you might say courses that deal with more professional subjects and less in theory. But there’s still a balance. UO’s not a theory or a practice school. It tries to be both. Our students like to get into the details but still try to have a vision."

Ryan Tyni's Santa Barbara Boathouse (rendering courtesy UO)

To be an architect requires a diverse set of skills: the visual acumen to draw and render forms, the sense of social and physical engineering to create functional spaces, and the charisma to meet and understand and express clients' wishes and dreams. Part of the interest in attending student-thesis presentations is to see how those skills come together, or are in the process of doing so. To present a thesis isn't the same as being an architect, but it requires a lot of the same skills.

"The work needed to be able to stand alone without a student presenting it, as this was an exhibition as well as a review," said Becca Cavell of THA Architecture, who attended and critiqued the presentations this year and is scheduled to teach a UO studio this fall. "Some of the presentations were exceptionally well designed from a graphic standpoint – great overall layouts, strong use of color and tone, and good typographic design can generate immediately attractive spreads that draw you to them. The models help too – some of the large scale, detailed models exploring architectural tectonics did a good job of saying, 'Look at me.'"

A music school in Bend by Marayd Allen (rendering courtesy UO)

But, Cavell added, "The thrill of creating a 3-D model sometimes sidetracks students from the importance of providing reviewers with some basic information – good plans, sections and elevations are still useful for a quick understanding of a project as well as showing how a project has been appropriately developed. And while public speaking is easy for some, harder for others, excruciating for some, it’s an important part of life as a professional and one of the most under-taught skills in architecture school. Most of these students seemed well rested and had some idea about what they were going to say about their work, but some of them still struggled to convey the main themes of their work in a concise manner."

"My biggest criticism?  It was incredible how many students – the vast majority – failed to adequately educate the newcomer about their site and its context," Cavell said. "Weeks and months of exhaustive research and documentation was forgotten in the excitement of the final building design. We, the reviewers, need to know: where is this?  What are the neighboring buildings like? Which way is north? What is it like here? Without this information it is hard to formulate an idea about a project."

Peter Hamilton's Water Museum and freeway cap in Santa Monica (rendering courtesy UO)

The student projects from Gast's class, which were charged with designing some kind of urban public space, offered an interesting variety. Some, such as Ryan Tyni and Ashley Koger, imagined boathouses along the water as places for intermingling and forming community ties. Others, such as Natasha Shirazi, Colin Jensen and Sarah Lundy, created community centers centered around creative arts. Jeremy Katich and Patrick Taylor imagined artisan food emporiums, while Nate Wood and Scott Winters created museums.

Given that some student projects were set in Portland and others elsewhere, I asked Gast how much of an example our city provides. 

"We’re very fortunate in Portland to have so many good public space examples. We’re a good resource. But I also like to have people look at other places in the world where there are exciting things happening; projects like the Oslo Opera House, for example, are very stimulating," he said. "Portland doesn’t really have that kind of spectacular architecture that combines new public spaces with signature buildings. It would be nice to have a few more spectacular urban buildings like that. We have spaces like Pioneer Courthouse Square. But it doesn’t engage particular buildings. I tried with the studio to create interactions between buildings and outdoor public spaces and look at the tensions and relationships. We don’t have a space like the Seattle Library, which is a very stimulating interior public space, or the Olympic sculpture park. We really could use more of that. We really don’t have anything on the riverfront that’s provocative that’s been done recently."

Colin Jensen's Hood River Makers' Market (rendering courtesy UO)

"I think the students did investigate the whole idea of public space in depth," Gast added. "We looked at various philosophies of public space and writers like Richard Sennett who have written about public spaces as opportunities for diversity: to meet and engage with people not like themselves. I think our best example is Saturday Market: you have a whole wide range of people who show up for that. I think we need more events and spaces for that. if we could get a public market on the level of seattle or even a lesser example it’d be great. But I would hope we could get some public buildings like the Seattle public library that are open to lots of different people all the time and make some of our architecture more accessible and public. We really don’t have that kind of building here."

Still, it was illuminating to see these grad students complete the high-wire act of generating designs and presenting them to not only grading professors but members of the professional public with real criticisms to offer. If it's daunting, though, it also may be the way to a job.

"These end-of-my-life-as-a-student shows are also recruitment fairs," Cavell says. "Some students get this: they put out business cards and promote themselves well. Marketing is another under-understood aspect of our profession and some of these students are naturals. We should hire them."

 

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Design Calendar: June 16-30

BY LUKE AREHART

South Downtown Portland Walking Tour –  Modernism and Beyond: The Architecture of Downtown Portland (South) Downtown
Portland contains an abundance of post World War II architecture by Pietro Belluschi, Michael Graves, and the world renowned firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores the southern portion of the central business district. You’ll learn about the controversial and the award winners, the architects and firms that designed them, and the issues of the times that led to such dramatic changes to our built environment and skyline. 6:00pm Thursday, June 20, 2013 and 1:00pm Sunday, June 23, 2013. Allow two hours for the tour, pre-registration is required. $15 ($10 for AHC members).

South Park Blocks Walking Tour – The South Park Blocks: A Cultural Mandate
This 11-block downtown area was first platted and donated to the City in 1852, transforming a fire break parcel into the most desirable residential area of its day –complete with schools, playgrounds, stately homes and places of worship. The South Park Blocks stand alone as a place of revitalization, refreshment and cultural allure. Offered by the Architectural Heritage Center. 2:00pm Sunday, June 30, 2013. Allow two hours for the tour, pre-registration is required. $15 ($10 for AHC members). (Thursday, June 27th's tour is sold out.)

Art for the Millions Bike Ride: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA
During the height of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided economic relief to millions of idle workers by employing them in the creation of public works projects and arts education programs. Although highly controversial in its time for its leftist political leanings, the WPA is cited as a major factor for the re-stabilization of the American economy leading up to WWII. Join Know Your City for a repeat of our first-ever tour, as we take a leisurely bicycle field trip/ tour of WPA-sponsored projects in Portland and hear from leading authorities on the subject. 10:00am – 1:00pm Saturday, June 15 and 10:00am – 1:00pm Saturday, June 22. Ride Departs from Portland Art Museum.

Discussing Oregon planning's past and future with PSU's Ethan Seltzer (part 2)

Google Maps satellite view of downtown Portland

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Portland Architecture: You worked for the city of Portland for commissioner Mike Lindberg in the 80s, for Metro in the 80s and 90s on the 2040 Plan, and were on the Planning Commission in the 2000s. How would you rate some of the changes that have happened in various city and regional bureaus, such as the PDC transitioning from urban renewal to an economic development role?

Ethan Seltzer: I wouldn’t count on that. Actually, some of the things the mayor has said suggest that PDC is not going to be heading off into an undefined economic development role, but will actually be herded back towards the reason it was created in the first place, which is a place-making role.

PDC was created back in 1958 to do business in the city’s interest. The idea was it was really useful to have an arm’s length entity that was out there, able to do business in the city’s interest, without being caught up in the day to day politics of the city, that could work at the same speed, at the same magnitude and in the same way, with people who were basically making decisions about land and development. Put it this way: the city of Portland is about 30-35 percent right of way. It’s about 14 percent parks. Throw in airports, public institutions like schools, port properties, and pretty soon you’re at about 50 percent of the city in public ownership. The city has direct control over that.

They created PDC in essence for those occasions when it would become a partner in the development of the other 50 percent. But the only way it can work is if the city essentially establishes policy and PDC carries it out. Those relationships have gotten incredibly muddied in recent years.

Not only that, but for many years now Portland has funded all of its economic development activity through urban renewal funds. Which is ridiculous, because you can only spend those funds within urban renewal areas. And really economic development is a much more multi-faceted kind of enterprise than just what happens with land development in urban renewal areas.

So fundamentally, economic development ought to be funded by the general fund, because it really affects the entire city and the city’s relationships with all the jurisdictions around it. For PDC to say it’s an economic development agency leads you to wonder how that’s going to work, and where exactly they’re going to get the funding to behave in that way.

I really do think what Charlie Hales has done is reminded PDC that the reason it exists is to carry out these plans that enable the city to be a partner, so to speak, in what happens with that other 50 percent. What we use urban renewal for needs some careful discussion by the city so that PDC can be better instructed in what it is the city’s trying to achieve. Part of the problem is that the city has not been real articulate. I don’t think the Commission has been real articulate. There’s a real opportunity here with the new mayor to ask the City to be a lot clearer about what it’s trying to accomplish with urban renewal. And frankly if the city doesn’t want to do urban renewal, I think it ought to question whether it should have a PDC.

What are you working on now? Can you talk about the journey that the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning within the College of Urban and Public Affairs has been on?

This is one of the oldest graduate programs at Portland State. In the Toulan School we essentially have two kinds of graduate degrees: one is a professional planning degree, the master of urban and regional planning, and the other is a more traditional scholarly degree: master of urban studies and a Ph.D. in urban studies.  The master of urban and regional planning program has become very selective. People want to come here and study. We get about 200 applications for about 35 positions. We’ve tried to develop, and I think successfully, a program that focuses heavily on practice. Our goal is to train people who envision themselves as practitioners and who will see themselves as not just getting a job but over the course of their career helping to lead the field. And our students win national awards. That’s a great record.

We’re also conscious of the fact that we’re here to both provide access to training and education but we’re also here to meet the needs of the community and the state beyond. What that means in part is that we could make this a bigger program but we’re careful not to make it too big. Frankly it doesn’t do us a lot of good or the community a lot of good if it’s filled with a lot of people who are unemployed and have little prospect of getting employed. We try to stay in touch with the practicing community to understand how our students are doing, how they’re getting absorbed, and whether we’re doing a good job of meeting the needs that public agencies, private consultants and nonprofit organizations have.

How has the profession changed given the booming and busting economy?

It’s getting better. For example, we require 400 hours of internship to graduate. We don’t give them credit for that. Up until 2008, I’d say almost all of those internships were paid. Not only that, they were in all different sectors. The recession and crash of 2008 basically brought that to a screaming halt: not just in paid internships but I’d say a halt in hiring, for graduates in 2010 in particular. I think since then it’s been recovering. We’re seeing the return of the paid internship. We’re seeing students getting jobs before they graduate. We’re seeing ups and downs in hiring; public agencies are not doing so well right now but private firms are doing much better. So it kind of goes up and down. I think if you look long-term, there will continue to be jobs there. I really do believe the Baby Boom is going to retire at some point and get out of the way, and you’ll begin to see positions open up like we haven’t seen for some time.

On the other hand, people really like to come to Portland. We have a lot of people coming here from all over the place without jobs. Which is kind of interesting. It’s counter to the logic of economists, who say if you’re not getting paid you’re not showing up. But you know, Oregon has never been a great place to get rich. It’s been a great place to live well. People tend to be able to kind of get enough, but if you want to get wealthy, go to LA or New York or Chicago or Houston. Seattle’s probably even an easier place to get rich. But fundamentally, people choose to live in Portland. And they tend to stick around when things get tough, because they want to be here.

I recently spent a few days in La Jolla, California and was reminded how special Portland is. La Jolla was the first place outside of Las Vegas where I encountered street corners where one couldn’t cross the street; instead pedestrians were directed to bridges over the street. And for all the beautiful beaches it was hard to find many that weren’t private.

There’s an industry in every city that wants to make you as a visitor really happy. As a consequence, it’s great visiting cities. Everywhere, there are people who want you to experience whatever they’ve got to offer at its peak. But unfortunately, most of us can’t live as visitors all the time. What’s it like to live in these places? If you choose to walk, if you choose to ride a bike, you’re being given the message that it’s either not necessary or not welcome. You’re being given some insights into what daily like is like. 

It would be really interesting to use multiple listing service listings for a metro region, or sales reports, to find the zip codes where you have the most real estate activity around buying and selling the median priced home. Look for the median priced home, and look for the zip code with the most activity. And then go and live there for two weeks. Call it the median house tour of America. Compare cities based on that, not on the "36 Hours in Istanbul” in the New York Times travel section.

If you’re a recent college grad and you’re looking for a place to live in NYC, you can’t afford Brooklyn. So you’re going to Queens. What if you want to go from Queens to, say, MoMA on a free day? Well, it takes like an hour and a half to get there. And what if you had to do that every day? Then you realize we have nothing to complain about.

 

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Discussing Oregon planning's past and future with PSU's Ethan Seltzer (part 1)

Ethan Seltzer (image courtesy Portland State University)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

May 29 of this year marked the 40th anniversary of the passage of Senate Bill 100 in the Oregon Legislature, which for the first time required cities and towns to plan for growth. I'd already planned to interview Portland State University urban studies and planning professor Ethan Seltzer, Ph.D. about the anniversary and the state of statewide planning today, but Seltzer instead reached out to me - with a correction. In a recent post about visiting three European cities, I'd casually noted that the Portland metro area's urban growth boundary, while more than worth having, did raise property values. Seltzer quickly emailed to explain that this is not true - at least not necessarily and not directly. The following is a transcript of our conversation, the length of which means it will be broken down into this post and a second post to follow in the days ahead.

Portland Architecture: So the urban growth boundary doesn't increase land prices?

A lot of people use a really primitive economics 101 conception of the urban growth boundary being kind of like a balloon, the idea being, ‘Well, if demand increases but the balloon doesn’t increase…” But the reality is it’s much more complicated. Reason number one: urban growth boundaries aren’t Great Walls of China. They’re required by state law to contain about enough land needed to meet a 20-year demand for projected land supply. At any time within the urban growth boundary, there is land available for other uses, including housing or industrial or whatever. But fundamentally the idea that the UGB contains this place that is completely urbanized and built up and will never change is misguided. Depending on taste, markets and a lot of things, there may be a lot of land or a little land.

For example, when the UGB was adopted in 1980, along with the comprehensive plans done by the jurisdictions within it, the capacity for new residential development went from 160,000 units to 310,000 units. By taking a closer look at the land supply and what it was capable of—and realizing this is all within the context of local tastes and values and desires—it was found there was essentially twice as much capacity for residential development as people thought there was. This idea that there’s this absolutely rigid relationship between the UGB and what happens with land supply and price is very difficult to sustain. 

The other part of it is that people’s tastes have really changed significantly over time. When the 2000 census came along, there was one child in the Pearl District. By the time the 2010 census came along, there was enough that there was an elementary school in the Pearl. The conventional wisdom was that people with kids wouldn’t want to live in the Pearl. That was shattered in 10 years because people wanted to live there badly enough that they figured out a way to make it work. Things which seemed intractable and never changeable actually are quite flexible. Because of that, attributing housing costs solely to the UGB is really wrong and misguided.

It’s also inaccurate to say that the UGB has no impact on price, by the way. But when you look at the peer-reviewed literature, essentially what they find is they can’t make a determination—it’s not significant enough—or alternatively that there are other factors which have a bigger impact on the median house price than the growth boundary, or regulation.

A study was done 20 years ago to nail this down when median housing prices were rising rapidly. The conclusion was there were a number of factors, and one of the most significant was that the structure of the home building industry in this region is comprised of many small builders. By being unable to capture economies of scale, that alone was probably having a bigger impact than the presence of the UGB itself.

Even so, land inside the UGB is a lot more valuable from a market point of view than land outside the UGB, right?

That’s been demonstrated and shown. But that’s kind of as it should be. The whole notion is that when we started down this road with Senate Bill 100 that we would take the pressure off of rural land to provide a place for urban development. That taking the pressure off takes a couple of different forms, but one of them clearly is to try to ensure that the market doesn’t begin to inappropriately speculate on rural land for urban purposes. In essence, what that research has shown is that’s true: the land-use planning program in Oregon actually has done a pretty good job of taking the speculative pressure off of farmland.

And the amount of overall farmland has only marginally decreased, right?

Compared to other places, yeah.

But nonetheless, is there rural land speculation? Of course there is. Is that something we should be concerned about? Yeah. Because fundamentally at the end of the day, if there isn’t a viable rural economy, if farming isn’t economically viable—if there aren’t processors and suppliers, if there isn’t a whole infrastructure to support the production and processing and marketing of crops—we aren’t going to be able to sustain growth boundaries for very long. And I think that’s largely for political reasons. I think we actually as urban residents have a huge stake in seeing that there is a viable economy associated with the working landscape, because that’s the only way we’ll be able to maintain this notion of an urban growth boundary. I think we have a number of things to be concerned about moving forward. One is not just, ‘What form do our cities take?’ It’s also, ‘What shape is our rural economy in?’ And how do we ensure that what Oregon is really good at in a lot of ways, which is the incredible abundance of the natural landscape, maintains itself as an important economic element in the nature of the state?

The big issue for us, I think in a lot of ways, is to not get too focused on things that are too subject to the inevitable change that’s going to occur. What are the things that we know about this place? Well, it’s incredibly beautiful. The landscape is incredibly abundant. This has been a great place for people to live for 14,000 years, one of the oldest continually inhabited places in North America. It’s the northern temperate rainforest; it’s a high degree of biodiversity. We have a fly-by-wire relationship with the mountains to the east and the ocean to the west. It helps to kind of shape our kind of sense of the landscape. There’s a strong sense of place. And in a lot of ways, I think that’s kind of where we need to have our focus: not get too uptight about what things look like, maybe, or trying to feed particular choices about industry or commercial activity or even residential development, but actually to pay much more attention to these larger framing issues and make sure we protect them. 

Can beauty be quantified, and how much does policy try to address that?

If you take a look at the statewide planning goals and do a word search, the word ‘beauty’ doesn’t appear. That’s kind of an interesting issue. If you talk to lots of people in this state—urban and rural, progressive and conservative—there’s a kind of consensus that beauty is part of Oregon. And not only that, but we can agree on what some of that beauty is about. How do we bring that into the way in which communities, through government, affect the way things happen? And not only that, but how do we apply that to public agencies and public works? I’m interested in the inattention we pay to the way we build infrastructure and the way it looks and the kind of relationships that it creates that last for a very long time.

Of course on the other hand, people will say, ‘We’ve got $11 billion worth of transportation projects in the metro region and $3 billion to pay for them.’ All I can say is thank goodness we don’t have more than $3 billion, because think of what we would have built if we had all that money. The answer is a lot of stuff that not only may we no longer need but which would have profoundly affected the development of the region in ways that may not have been all that beneficial. There’s nothing magic about infrastructure. When people begin to suggest that there’s a kind of scientific and economic and sociological imperative behind the construction of roads and other major infrastructure projects, I think you really need to question why they are saying that. What are they trying to accomplish? How does that have to do the interests that they represent? Because the fact of the matter is there’s no magic there.

This May brought the 40^th anniversary of the passing of Senate Bill 100, which required a lot of public outreach to get passed. How do we accomplish planning goals and managing growth today in such a divisive political climate?

Two things are absolutely certain. One is that in America we have provided tremendous support for private property and local control. When the Supreme Court decided Euclid v. Ambler Realty Company back in the ‘20s, what they fundamentally decided was that each individual unit of government could have its own zoning. We’ve been on that path ever since. What that means is no matter what we want to do, no matter what we set out to do, it will always be framed by those two facts. There will always be tension about the articulation of a community view of what ought to happen to private property. And there will certainly always be tension about a state or regional view about what ought to happen in local jurisdictions. The stage is set for tension and controversy. For the rest of our lives and forever after, I suspect that will be the case and we’d be crazy to think otherwise.

That’s kind of where we start from. What did Senate Bill 100 do and what did its supporters do after its passage that really helped? They did do a tremendous amount of public outreach: barnstorming the state, on the road, just really out there. But I think more than anything else, it made what the goals were about really authentic. It was about what people actually said. It wasn’t about what architectural or design or planning pundits said it should be. It wasn’t about what paragons of the market said it should be. It wasn’t about what faux policy institutes said it should be all about. It was about what the people of Oregon said it should be about. That kind of participation was everywhere, and it involved a tremendous number of people, at a time when the population of the state of Oregon was less than half of what it is today. It was a tremendously authentic statement about what Oregon was going to try to accomplish with this new planning system.

The other thing to remember is Senate Bill 100 didn’t appear overnight. It was preceded four years before by Senate Bill 10. It was preceded by 25 years of county planning, by 50 years of city planning, by a number of different efforts to address the way the state was growing and which were not succeeding. There was a long run-up to Senate Bill 100, and it was also occurring in an environment where the nation and the world were becoming aware of the impact of human activity on the environment, and where the idea that we would do some things—some extraordinary things—to protect environmental quality and address the damage that had been done to environmental quality in the past would take place, and it’s an unbelievable time. You put these pieces together and you have to say, wow: there was this amazing confluence of things, and they had the wisdom to proceed in a manner that enabled the response to be as authentic and close to the ground as it possibly could. Huge issues, authentic and very personal response.

Today, we’re confronted with similarly huge issues, massive issues: climate change, the coming growth in population in Oregon and the pacific northwest, the pressure on resources—that continual need to respond to the changes that have affected everything form salmon and insect populations to human health—the changes are no less dramatic. But the environment is quite different. The fact that Oregon did what it did has drawn the attention of those who don’t believe that any community should have the kind of say over what happens to it that Oregon communities do. We’re a battleground for even bigger issues than were confronted back in the day when Senate Bill 100 was rolled out. Which is to say that you can’t just repeat history. You can’t just do it the same way. You can’t hit the road with a barnstorming show and expect that same result. But I think one thing we are absolutely sure of is that fundamental notion of engagement, to create an authentic and recognizable response, is crucial. I’d say if there was an area for innovation and for a recommitment and for new passion on the part of everybody who cares about these issues, it’s engagement. How are we going to do it? What’s it going to be like? Frankly, I’m not really optimistic that Facebook is the citizen involvement of the future. I am over and over impressed by the power of people encountering and engaging each other face to face. How do you do that in a world that’s increasingly becoming less face to face, more distant, more mediated via smart phone technology? We encounter that with our students. It’s really interesting. Today some people don’t use email. They only use texting. Some people only use Facebook. Some people only talk on the phone. Everybody is communicating using different modes. It’s inconsistent. So expand that now to the question of something like, “What’s the future going to be for our community?’ How does that communication take place? How do people get brought together so that face to face they can understand each other as people and then understand their community as something that is common to them all? Id’ say if there was a place for innovation, the design of engagement would be a wonderful place to start.

 

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Congregation and convergence at Alberta Abbey

Village Building Convergence stage at Alberta Abbey (photo by Matthew Henderson)

BY MATTHEW HENDERSON

Continuing our series on adaptive reuse among Portland's abundant stock of repurposed churches, a noble experiment, if precarious business venture, has been undertaken recently at an historic church at the corner of Northeast Alberta and Mallory Street.

Formerly Mallory Baptist Church, the striking brick building with its pointed spire, green from oxidation, resembles an old middle school. Inside its heavy-set doors, a wide, curved stairwell displays paintings by local artists, while striking a note of nostalgia that defies obvious definition. It's somewhere in-between arriving at school after the bell, visiting the dentist, or indeed, perhaps most plainly, arriving at a church.

This slight ambiguity seems to have served building owners Dennis Adams and Justin C. Hunt, who began a frenetic adventure of architectural (and social) retrofitting since purchasing the building last June.

 

Alberta Abbey sanctuary (photo by Matthew Henderson)

Involved in this re-envisioning were many sweat-infused renovations, countless consultations with technicians, tenants, and other interested parties, all manner of surprises associated with old building upkeep including roof leaks and boiler room mishaps, and a fire sale purging of many of the building's transfixing contents. It’s a testament to the church’s multiple past lives and the triumphs and failings of the building as a community hub.

What has emerged of late is Alberta Abbey, a mixed-use facility that embodies the diversity of the neighborhood that has helped to define it. The organization behind the project, Alberta Abbey Fellowship, consists, again, of the duo of Dennis and Justin, long-time friends who formed AAF in 2012 with a vision to revitalize the failing building in a way that could be replicated elsewhere. "The hope is to maximize this community asset by incorporating a diversity of uses," says Justin.

Beginning with just one primary tenant, a congregation called TGW which uses the sanctuary on Sundays and maintains offices there, Alberta Abbey has since become home to a political action non-profit, a seamstress, a mortician, two architects, an art therapist, a live-in caretaker, and a record label/recording studio/creative collaborative.

Alberta Abbey exterior (photo by Matthew Henderson)

Additionally, AAF has partnered with Kitchen Commons to begin promoting the use of their underutilized commercial kitchen for communal use and rental purposes. AAF's approach has been one of embracing diversity, pragmatism, and openness. It has prioritized long-term leases and promoted among its tenants the building's communal ethic and philosophy of utility.

The sanctuary, for example, is laid claim to every Sunday for the congregation and their church service. But other times throughout the week, the sanctuary, which seats upwards of 400, has been used for family movie nights, hip-hop concerts, photo shoots, and an ambient music series called M.A.S.S.

Barring any uses deemed inappropriate or offensive, the sanctuary is available for rent, along with the kitchen and former gymnasium, which are both situated in the sub-level of this deceptively large and cavernous building.

Village Building Convergence attendees at Alberta Abbey (photo by Matthew Henderson)

Upon visiting the building recently, I encountered a frenzied scene of slightly uncanny construction happening in the basement gymnasium. Stick-strewn, earthy amalgams employing natural building techniques were being assembled atop the sheen of the Abbey's newly refinished wood floors. The forms were beginning to resemble a stage, a treehouse-like loft, and various kiosks. It was all in preparation for the annual Village Building Convergence.

Village Building Convergence is a ten-day affair promoting "placemaking," an idea sprouted by architect-activist Mark Lakeman, who has become well known for fostering transformations of public spaces through ecologically-oriented community projects. With any luck, the communal spirit of the VBC will linger and combine with the groundwork laid by Adams and Hunt, and the Abbey flock can continue to thrive.

 

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The Architect's Questionnaire: Brian Cavanaugh

Brian Cavanaugh (photo courtesy Architecture Building Culture)

BY LUKE AREHART

The latest installment in our ongoing series on local architects, their careers and favorites brings us to the founding principal of Portland's Architecture Building Culture, Brian Cavanaugh. Born in 1969, Cavanaugh is Oregon-raised and educated but who has also had the chance to see the world while studying at some of the world's top schools such as the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Prior to establishing his own practice with Mark Ritchie, the architect worked in New York and Los Angeles on a number of art museums  and institutions as well as housing. While he was a senior associate with Michael Maltzan Architecture in NYC, Cavanaugh served as project director for the Rainbow Apartments, which was nominated for a prestigious Cooper-Hewitt People's Design Award. His work has been featured in publications like Architectural Record, Lotus, The Seattle Times and LA Architect. Architecture Building Culture's awards include a Citation Award at last year's AIA/Portland Design Awards. 

Portland Architecture: When did you first become interested in architecture as a possible career?

Brian Cavanaugh: I always wanted to be an architect as far back as I could remember. In fact, in fourth grade, my elementary school, here in Portland, started an after-school program where they offered a variety of activities. Usually it had something to do with what the teachers might be able to offer or were interested in. My fourth grade teacher’s husband was an architect, and she had an interest in architecture as well, so she offered an architecture appreciation class. One of the things we did was take field trips downtown. We sketched buildings, visited architecture firms; it was a very memorable experience.

Where did you study architecture and how would you rate the experience?

I earned my bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Oregon and my master of architecture degree from Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Both experiences were very influential, and very different. I graduated from Oregon in 1995, which was a great time to be at the school. There was a really talented group of students and faculty, which elevated the quality of the work. I feel very fortunate to have been there at that time as it gave me a strong foundation from which to build upon as a young architect.

While at Oregon I spent my fourth year at the Mackintosh School of Architecture in Glasgow, which had a lot to do with my overall experience as an undergrad. Every architecture student should go abroad for a year no matter where they are going to school. In every architecture program there is a dialogue established and there is a way the school operates; students can get too comfortable in that environment. You need to get outside of that comfort zone. The work I did after my year abroad was the best I did at Oregon. The experience changed everything.

I graduated from Harvard in 2000. It was a completely different experience from the U of O, and a real turning point for me. As a student there, you are exposed to amazing faculty, both full-time and visiting, academic and technical resources and your fellow students are incredibly talented. In many ways, my time at Harvard has been one of the biggest influences on my career.

Stubbs Residence (photo by Benjamin Benschneider, Seattle Times)

What is your favorite building project that you’ve worked on?

Generally speaking, any project that we are currently working on is the one that I am most interesting in. The work is an ongoing exploration. Each project building on the overall trajectory of the office. But I would say that the Stubbs Residence in Seattle, WA and the Lubavitch Center of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC will always be important to me. They were some of the first projects of the office and allowed us to set the tone for our subsequent work.

Looking back in terms of projects that were influential to my career, MoMA QNS when I was at Michael Maltzan’s office was a very important project for me. The stakes were very high for the project and the office. Being able to oversee that process from beginning to end, at that time in New York, with that client and with Michael, was an incredibly unique and rewarding experience. Actually much of the work, especially the cultural institution projects, I was involved in at MMA have been very important in terms of informing how I want to approach design and practice.

Who has been an important mentor among your colleagues?

Michael Maltzan. I feel fortunate that I was able to work with a number of renowned people over the years, but Michael has had the biggest influence on my career and continues to be someone I look to for advice when I can. My time with Machado & Silvetti Associates in Boston, which was not as long as with Michael, was also very influential. Both Jorge and Rodolfo were incredibly generous and amazing to work for. Their office is a great model for how to build a practice.

MoMA QNS (photo by Christian Richters)

What part of the job do you like best, and as an architect what do you think you most excel at?

I love all aspects of being an architect. True, some things can be tedious and frustrating at times; some things I am better at than others. But I love it all. Not a day goes by that I don't feel incredibly fortunate to being doing what I love to do.

That said, I have found that I really enjoy the early stages of the project. I have had a great deal of experience working on complex projects from early visioning all the way through construction and I find the initial visioning/concept stage to be quite exciting, especially in terms of working with the clients to build a context for collaboration throughout the project. That initial collaboration and relationship building is essential, and is central to our firm's design process.

What are some Portland buildings (either new or historic) that you most admire?

Memorial Coliseum is a building that I always point to - for a couple of reasons. One, because I have a lot of memories of it from my childhood. I went to countless Winterhawks games, and I went to my first concert there...KISS, 1976. But more importantly, it’s an incredible work of modern architecture, one that probably in any other city would have been torn down by now. Hopefully it will continue to have a place in our city because it’s a remarkable building.

The Commonwealth building, although it has seen better days, and The Union Bank of California tower, also come to mind. The Portland Art Museum has a great scale for the city. Similar to the Coliseum, I have fond memories of Union Station and I love its place in the city. And, finally Allied Works' Wieden + Kennedy building is a masterwork.

Two more recent projects that point to the depth and sophistication of Portland's current architectural talent would be B-Side 6 by Works Partnership, and Ben Waechter's Z-Haus.

The other thing that Portland does really well, better than most US cities, is its public spaces. Everything from the Ira Keller Fountain to Jamison Square, there is an amazing constellation of public spaces in the city that are a testament to the quality of the urban environment here.

Casa Malaparte, from Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt

What is your favorite building outside of Portland and besides any you’ve worked on?

That is a long list, and it would probably change from day to day based on what I'm working on or thinking about, but Casa Malaparte (on the Italian island of Capri) is probably my all-time favorite building. It has been described by some as the most beautiful house in the world and I would probably agree with that.

The Seattle Public Library continues to be a building that resonates with me. I think it is one of the most important buildings of the last 50 years in this country.

A building I have not visited but I have admired from afar is the Ibere Camargo Foundation in Brazil by Alvaro Siza. It is an amazing building. If I could only see one more building before I die, that would be the one. Actually, Siza's entire body of work is uniquely inspiring to me.

Ibere Camargo Foundation (photo by Fábio del Re)

The Yale Center for British Art by Louis Kahn is another building that has been incredibly influential to me. We studied a lot of Kahn at the University of Oregon, as you should. The Yale Center was one of his buildings that I did not quite get from an academic standpoint. However, visiting it in person is something I will always remember. It was a revelation to me. In fact, every Kahn building I've visited has been remarkable.

Is there a local architect or firm you think is unheralded or deserves more credit?

Portland has a group of young emerging practices that do incredible work. Ben Waechter is doing great work. And while they are not necessarily unheralded, Works Partnership is doing great work. It would be in Portland’s best interest, especially in terms of the public sector, to really see that there is some remarkable 'young' talent that could produce great work.

What would you like to see change about Portland’s built environment in the long term?

The central city's relationship to the river needs serious attention. There has to be a strong position taken to try to increase the ability to engage the river in a variety of ways. Related to that is the future of the Central Eastside - how it is going to develop, what direction that is going to take, etc.? These go hand-in-hand. How can the Central Eastside help reconnect the city back to the river? There is obviously a large barrier there to contend with in I-5, but there has to be some progressive thinking on that front.

Lubavitch Center, Vancouver, BC (rendering courtesy Architecture Building Culture)

How would you rate the performance of local government like the Portland Development Commission, or the development and planning bureaus?

Portland is a much different place than it was when I was growing up, a better place. It is consistently evolving and improving, and has become one of the benchmark cities in this country and gets recognized as such. There are challenges that we still need to deal with, but the city has to be doing something right, and our city and regional agencies such as the PDC, Metro, etc. have obviously played a major part in that success.

Would you rather live in a South Waterfront condo, a craftsman bungalow in Laurelhurst, a warehouse loft in the North Mississippi district or a mid-century ranch in the West Hills?

One of the great things about Portland is the diversity of neighborhoods/urban environments in such a close proximity. They all have good points and bad points, South Waterfront maybe having more bad than good, but they all add to the richness of the city. We just moved downtown, so right now that's where I want to live.

Who is a famous architect you’d like to see design a building in Portland?

There are a number of people that would be interesting. I would like to see Michael Maltzan do a project here. It would be great to have a Herzog & de Meuron, Peter Zumthor, and the like. Portland is a great city that deserves to have that level of criticality and expression. I would also like to see Allied Works be able to do a significant public building here.

Which would you rather be responsible for: an ugly LEED platinum building or a beautiful modernist energy hog?

I think that's an outmoded question, a false choice really. I want to be responsible for great architecture, which as a given would be sustainable and beautiful.

Name something besides architecture (sneakers, furniture, umbrellas) you love the design of.

I have an affinity for well-designed books, which tend toward architecture, art, and design in general. My library is one of my prized possessions and a key resource in the office. Two books in particular are particularly cherished - first editions of "Delirious New York" and "Learning From Las Vegas". The original "Learning From Las Vegas" in particular is a beautifully designed book.

I also love the design of everyday objects. Objects whose design is exactly what it needs to be. And in that clarity, there is beauty. Reminds me of that Buckminster Fuller quote, "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I am finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong."

What are three of your all-time favorite movies?

It would be impossible to narrow down my favorites to three. I'd start with everything Terrence Malick has ever done and probably will do.

Three movies that come to mind in the context of this interview: Woody Allen’s Manhattan, Godard’s Contempt, and Hitchcock’s Rear Window. All three feature architecture and the city in compelling and beautiful ways.

Much of Contempt takes place at Casa Malaparte.  Brigitte Bardot, Casa Malaparte: it doesn't get much better. Rear Window is a great film in terms of representing the private life and space of the city. In Manhattan, there is this one moment in the film where there is this beautiful interior shot of a Manhattan apartment that is just exquisite. It is just a beautifully shot scene. 

 

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