Portland Architecture

Design calendar: October 1-15

Undated historic image of Milwaukie City Hall (City of Milwaukie)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Heritage Barn Workshop
Have you ever wondered what steps you need to take to restore a historic barn? Or how to fund a rehabilitation? Restore Oregon's 2016 Heritage Barn Workshop will feature speakers, hands-on training, and sessions on barn condition assessment and stabilization. Over the course of the day there will be a demonstration on how to craft a mortise and tenon joint using historic methods by workshop sponsor New Energy Works. Barn owners, historic preservationists, and the general public are invited with no previous knowledge needed to participate. Champoeg Park, 8239 Champoeg Road NE, outside St Paul. 9AM Saturday, October 1. $35-45.

Downtown Milwaukie walking tour
With many buildings dating from the early to mid-20th century and beginnings as a shipping port, Portland's oldest suburb, Milwaukie, offers an interesting variety of architecture, including the 1930s early-modern City Hall, for this Architectural Heritage Center tour. Tour begins outside Milwaukie City Hall, 10722 SE Main Street. 10AM Saturday, October 1. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Mid-Town And The West End: Icons, Hidden Gems And Historic Preservation
This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores downtown between the South Park Blocks and I-405, an area filled with iconic buildings such as the Portland Art Museum as well as numerous lesser-known architectural gems. Attendees will encounter historic apartment houses, storefronts, cultural and religious buildings, and the remnants of what was once a thriving residential area, while also gaining an understanding of the impacts of development on historic preservation efforts. Tour begins on north side of the Central Library, on SW Yamhill Street between 10th and 11th Avenues. 11AM Sunday, October 2. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

The Art of Architecture: Homes By Brent Keys
The Modern Architecture + Design Society, the Austin-based company that stages the annual Portland Modern Home Tour, is producing this one-day, pop-up tour at a home designed and built by Homes By Brent Keys, whose houses have been part of two past home tours. Portland's J. Pepin Gallery will stock the home with artwork, and Keys will be on hand to discuss modern home design and theory as well as the strategies used to blend contemporary and classic design. 85 NE Highland Street. 2PM Sunday, October 2. Free (RSVP required).

Modernism In Your Backyard: Reed College
After World War II, Portland's Reed College saw a major spike in enrollment, which led to increased demand for new modern residences, classrooms and student support functions, some of them by the great Pietro Belluschi, complementing its largely Georgian-style campus created by noted local architect AE Doyle. In this DoCoMoMo Oregon event, architect and historic preservation specialist Paul Falsetto, project coordinator for the Reed College Heritage Master Plan, will lead a lecture about Reed's history, modern-era campus development, and the creation of the Heritage Master Plan. Following the lecture, Eric Wheeler of Positively Portland Walking Tours and Paul Edison-Lahm will lead a campus walking tour that showcases the campus's collection of modern era resources and illustrates this important phase of Reed College's evolution. Reed College, Prexy Building, near corner of SE 28th Avenue and Woodstock Boulevard. 10AM Saturday, October 8. $30 ($25 for DoCoMoMo members, $15 for students).

1320 Broadway tour
For over 60 years, Portland's daily newspaper, The Oregonian, was headquartered in a circa-1948 building by the city's most acclaimed architect, Pietro Belluschi. But in 2015 the paper moved out and the building was purchased by developer Urban Renaissance Group, which then hired the city's most acclaimed local firm of today, Allied Works, to complete a renovation. For this Women's Architectural League event, Pietro Belluschi's son, acclaimed architect Anthony Belluschi, will speak about the project, as will Travis Drilling of URG and longtime Oregonian photographer Randy Rasmussen, before a self-guided tour. 1320 SW Broadway. 10AM Tuesday, October 11. Free (RSVP required).

Bright Lights: An Evening with Douglas Macy
No landscape architect has touched more of Portland’s downtown park system than Douglas Macy. A key member of the legendary team that shaped Pioneer Courthouse Square, Macy and his firm (Walker Macy) went on to design many of the central city’s most dynamic and cherished places, from the cherry-tree postcard shot of Waterfront Park to the busy Portland State University Urban Center. In conversation with journalist and John Yeon Center director Randy Gragg as part of the Bright Lights discussion series, Macy will reflect on 40 years of practice and offer a candid view of where our downtown parks might go next. Portland Art Museum, Whitsell Auditorium 1219 SW Park Avenue. 6PM Tuesday, October 11. $10-30 sliding scale to benefit UO John Yeon Center's graduate studio fund (free for students).

Innovation Seminar - Green Building and Energy Efficiency in Buildings
Explore international green building and energy effieciency design at this Innovation Seminar hosted by the German American Chamber of Commerce at Portland State University's School of Architecture. The seminar will feature a keynote by renowned professor Thomas Auer from the Technical University of Munich and accompanying talks by several German innovative companies, researchers, and industry experts. Auer's research focuses on energy and how it influences the built environment. He is an expert in the field of climate responsive building design, which aims to optimize energy performance and environmental quality while taking into consideration local specifics such as climate and the influence of building form and material. Shattuck Hall Annex, Room 120, 1914 SW Park Avenue. 4PM Friday, October 14. Free.

Portland Heights tour
This Architectural Heritage Center walking tour explores Portland Heights, a mostly residential southwest Portland neighborhood with Vista Avenue running through its center. It was once a very difficult area to build in, or even get to, before it became a popular residential district, as transportation options increased in Portland during the late 19th century. Today the mixture of homes, ranging in style from Colonial Revival to Art Deco, is a veritable “who’s who” of Portland architects and their masterworks including homes designed by the likes of A.E. Doyle, Emil Schacht, Edgar Lazarus, and Morris Whitehouse. Tour begins on SW Spring Street west of Vista Avenue, beside Ainsworth Elementary. 10AM Saturday, October 15. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

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Zidell's last barge and Portland's transforming waterfront

Gantry crane at Zidell Marine Corporation (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Last week I happened to be meeting a friend for coffee in South Waterfront, at a bakery directly across the street from the Zidell Marine Corporation's barge-building facility.

As I approached the bakery by bike, coasting those last few yards, I took a moment to marvel at one of my favorite urban settings in Portland: the mix of heavy industry and 21st century urban development that has for the past several years come from the Zidell facility sitting right next door to the Portland Aerial Tram on the OHSU Center for Health and Healing. It always felt like a prime example of two different eras in one small place.

The next day, though, brought news that Zidell is building its last barge, which will be completed next spring. The company will continue to lease barges, but it won't make them anymore.

Every city's history is a fluid and continuing one, though, which means that one always knew the barge-building facility was going to go away at some point. But the company's president, Jay Zidell, had as recently as 2013 indicated that it would remain for many years. But over the past year, as it became less clear that Zidell could count on a succession of future barge orders, the company decided to accelerate the transition of its property from shipping to urban development.

Last year South Waterfront seemed to really come of age. In the years prior, the Great Recession had taken its toll and many of its signature condo towers were largely empty, leading to empty streets unless you were standing in front of OHSU and the tram. But after the opening of the Tilikum Crossing bridge, by which time the real estate economy had rebounded, the district seemed full of life and began to really grow again. Unless the national economy tanks, I think that growth will only continue, especially given how well connected South Waterfront now is with not only the bridge but both MAX and streetcar lines. It no longer feels like the geographically isolated place it is, pinned by I-5 and the river. But it turned out that Tilikum Crossing and the Zidell barge-building facility will have only had a little over a year together with both in operation. If you attended the Feast food festival earlier this month at the vacant Zidell Yards property next to the barge facility, or the Northwest Film Center's drive-in event there last weekend, it may be one of the last times, for over the next few years this 33-acre property, including the barge operation, will be filled with offices and condos.

Zidell shipyards, 1960s (Zidell Marine Corporation)

There was a time when the South Waterfront was practically nothing but barges and shipyards. Last year when I wrote a CityLab article about the Tilikum Crossing, I came across a 1964 photo of this area just north of the Ross Island Bridge. The Marquam Bridge is under construction in the background of this photo, and in the foreground are shipyards where hundreds of Liberty and Victory ships, many of them built in the Kaiser shipyards just a few miles north during World War II, being broken down for recycling.

It's not to say that South Waterfront can't or won't be a thriving urban district with the Zidell barges no longer being built there. Quite the contrary. As the Zidell property fills up, with more OHSU buildings as well as other offices and condos, we'll finally have a continuous strip of walkable cityscape and riverfront from downtown all the way down to the edge of South Waterfront. Like the bridge, that will only enhance South Waterfront's connections to the rest of the city center.

Even so, Zidell's barge construction gave South Waterfront something valuable that it will now lack: the presence of something old and historic there. I think this is not merely a sentimental idea but something crucial to the neighborhoods where we most often want to spend time. Walk around South Waterfront today and it feels in many ways like a nicely walkable high-density environment, with restaurants and shops as well as greenspace, and plenty of people to add a sense of energy. But it also feels a little bit alien, because there are only new buildings. The same sensation exists in the northern Pearl District, where there aren't any old warehouses but just new condos and apartments. The one anchor of oldness that the area had, Centennial Mills, is being destroyed by the city and the Portland Development Commission.

Renderings of future Zidell Yards development (top: ZGF, bottom: Lever Architecture)

If there's nothing we can do about the Zidell barges going away, one at least hopes that some of that industrial shell will remain. I've heard some talk that the gold-hued gantry crane at the west edge of the facility (closest to Moody Avenue) could be retained, for example. (It's already the site of a popular food cart pod of the same name.) Of course in an industrial facility it was a purely functional device, but the crane — which used to move on a track to help turn barges or put major structural components in place but has been inactive for the past five years as techniques have changed — bears a small resemblance to various arched monuments and gates found in cultures around the world, from famous examples like Paris's Arc de Triumph to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis but actually dating back to ancient Rome at least. The Arch of Constantine in Rome dates to 312 AD. If you add gates, which are common in Asian countries like Japan and India, they may go back even further.

Some of the Zidell master planning has indicated a desire for new structures to take inspiration from the industrial buildings on the site. But using weathered steel on a new office building isn't quite the same as having a massive barge being welded and hammered together on the site. Inevitably, something will be lost when the last barge is built and there is no longer such a visible contrast in types of activities. We ought to, and need to, retain some sense of the history that played out on this west side of the Willamette over the past century. The best cities or urban places are usually ones where the contributions of different eras can be visible in built form, as part of a continuous historical narrative. The barge building can't stay but a historical plaque just won't be enough.

The end of barge-building on the Zidell property is of course just part of a larger story. Portland, like all major American cities with working waterfronts touching their central cities, may never completely be without heavy industry's presence, nor should it. According to Colliers International report, the metro area's industrial vacancy rate fell to just over four percent in the second quarter, and four million square feet of industrial development is in the pipeline. But that industry is moving away from city centers to points further afield with easier transportation logistics and not such a high real estate value. We have to move on, but that makes it all the more important that we tell the story of that process.

 

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Architect Magazine names ZGF nation's top firm

Eliot tower (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Each year Architect magazine, the official publication of the American Institute of Architects, publishes a list of the top 50 firms in the United States. And while Portland is only the 20th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, the magazine this month named Portland firm ZGF Architects as tops nationally.

What does the list mean, and how is it calculated? It seems to be a combination of business and financial success mixed with achievement in design and sustainability. The magazine cited ZGF's 17 percent increase in net revenue in 2015, and its "relentless push for higher building performance," with managing partner Ted Hyman telling interviewer Amanda Hurley, “They feed off of each other. If we can show [clients] we’re bringing value in terms of design, it affects the bottom line. It takes care of itself.” Hurley also notes that ZGF recently brought in a chief financial officer who previously worked for two law firms and a new “chief people officer” to spearhead talent development.

At the same time, a number of major ZGF projects have come to a head, either recently completed or about to be, such as a major expansion of the Nike campus in Beaverton, a new cancer center for the University of Arizona, the J. Craig Venter Institute for genomics research in La Jolla, California outside San Diego, and offices for the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, not to mention landmarks of recent years like the Federal Center South project in Seattle. And the firm has a long history, dating to 1942, with a host of important Portland buildings and structures.

"The firm practices with imagination and finesse," wrote Architizer's Eric Baldwin in a recent tribute.

When I sat down recently with two ZGF partners, Kathy Berg and Jan Willemse, they offered a mix of pride in the achievement with an acknowledgement that lists can be a bit superficial or subject to an infinite number of different calculations.

"After it was announced someone at the firm said to me, ‘What does this mean? What did we do?’ I said, ‘It’s pretty opaque,’" Willemse recalls. "You get the survey and fill it out and you give them this information, and list projects that have been completed. But it’s not entirely clear the weighting of the questions and answers and categories: business, sustainability and design. It’s some average of those. I’m not sure which counts for more or less. I do know we’ve been in the past ranked in the top 10 a few times. We’re used to being recognized, even when from year to year the questions shift. Were we surprised? Yeah. You never know."

UA Cancer Center (N. Merrick/H. Blessing), Stanford Central Energy (Matt Anderson)

"I think it puts us in good stead," Berg says. "There are a lot of other good firms on the list. When I looked at the questions, I was encouraged that what we’re spending a lot of time looking at, Architect was too. We’re talking about relevant topics for our firm and our employees. That to me is a good sign."

How much of the ranking is about design? "Architect is AIA sponsored. It’s probably a more balanced evaluation of things than you’d get out of more of an aesthetically driven magazine that’s looking for visual aspects for buildings, and questions about business aren’t a part of the equation," Willemse says. "This is a balanced look across these levels: with people, with clients, with business numbers. Aesthetics, beauty and meaning will always drive our business. They’re prerequisites. You have to focus on those or you won’t survive. But can you take care of your people? Can you watch the bottom line, while serving your clients and community well?"

Berg says what she found the most exciting was "being recognized for design and sustainability. I think the industry is moving away from the idea that they are mutually exclusive. Sustainable design can create incredibly beautiful solutions. I think people can really see that."

"Some sustainable projects are a bit awkward," Willemse added somewhat sheepishly. We agreed on some major, high-profile green projects of recent years in both Seattle and Portland, some completed and some unbuilt, that were categorically ugly despite meeting rigid sustainability strictures like the Living Building Challenge. "You don’t want to bash them. But as a profession we do want to believe you can create beautiful things that are sustainable."

I've long felt that ZGF is that rare firm that seems to transcend the industry's traditional distinction between "service firm" (able to win big commissions based on having done other big commissions in the past) and "design firm" (noted for its quality creations and awards but without much practical big-job experience). Berg and Willemse believe that stems from the firm's culture, and the influence of longtime partners like Robert Frasca (the 'F' in ZGF). "There’s this ethos that a project can always be better," Berg says.

12 | West (Brian Libby)

Berg also cited the firm's success with trying new project types. "There isn’t a sense here that we just do health care or campus buildings or corporate offices. When we did the Portland International Airport expansion, it was one of the first airports we’d done," she explains. "When we did Doernbecher, it was one of our first children’s hospitals. We get some of the best projects in our portfolio doing that type for the first time or working for a new client for the first time. We spend a lot of time making sure the client wants to go on a fantastic journey with us."

"It’s contextual as opposed to formulaic, and all of that really originated with Frasca," Willemse adds. "It’s kind of quintessentially Portland in that you make do with what you’ve got. This was never a heavy industry driven place or an economic center. I think that allowed the firm to continually try different kinds of projects. The Vollum Institute was our first of that type. Frasca designed what’s called the interaction stair: the idea that you’d create casual collisions if you actually took some speace and said peole are going to run into each other here, and foster new ideas. You now see that everwhere. It’s the principles of how human beings utilize their space moving through their day when they have choice to be connected. Those principles drive the work, not necessarily an aesthetic." 

"It’s also about the quality of the detailing, and just the craft of making," Willemse adds. "That goes to stewardship of resources, whether it’s the physical or the client’s money. Frasca always loved doing institutional work, so our muscle memory became about createing 50 or 100-year-old buildings. That’s not the same mentality you get from, say, developer-driven work. It creates a quality of intention." ZGF has gone on to do a lot of developer-driven work, of course, like the 12 West building in which the company's headquarters is situated; it was developed by the city's most prominent developer, Gerding Edlen. But Gerding Edlen also has a commitment to sustainability that is seemingly as strong as its need to make a profit.

Berg and Willemse also stress the everyday firm culture and its attention to detail. "That’s what I joined the firm for: the attention to detail," Willemse says. "My bosses like Frasca used to say, 'We want it to pass the 500-foot test and the five-foot test."

"I remember coming to the firm, and ZGF was the first I'd worked at that said, 'We don’t copy details. You re-draw it, and understand how it applies to this project, and you make it better," Berg recalls. "We don’t copy for the sake of efficiency. We build on it and make it better. You won’t see the same details on project. Brooks [Gunsul, the 'G' in ZGF] was very adamant that you don’t copy and paste."

The two partners also talked about how the look of ZGF's buildings has evolved with changing times and material technologies. Works of the Reagan-Bush era like the KOIN tower, the Justice Center and the Oregon Convention Center, all with more masonry on the exterior than glass, look very different from the firm's more glassy 21st century projects. Particularly since the arrival of projects like the Eliot condos in the West End, or the aforementioned 12 West, one can associate ZGF in this Eugene Sandoval era (to name a key ZGF partner and leader of recent years) with glass as much as any material. 

"As we’ve brought in new blood to the firm, things are going to evolve naturally," Willemse says. "In the ‘80s, where postmodern was on its last legs but there were residual elements you see in buildings like the KOIN center, they were of their time and place. But I don’t think there’s a panelize brick manufacturer left in the Northwest today."

"And some of what we do with glazing now," Berg adds, "the technology didn’t exist in the ‘80s: the giant pieces of glass we can get from China and the unitized curtain walls."

"Has ZGF evolved into just better design? I think in many respects that goal of a certain quality of timelessness has remained, as has a commitment to a quality of craft," Willemse says. "But it has evolved over time with the technology available and the staff? Is there a difference now? Sure."

By no means is every ZGF building a masterpiece. The Randall Children's Hospital is, while great functionally, not exactly a looker. And take the NV, a new 26-story condo in the Pearl District by the firm's Seattle office, which at least to my eyes looks both banal and, thanks to some loud patterning on one corner of the facade, quite unattractive and even trite. I'd take the much-maligned Yard tower over this building. But for every NV there are a host of very fine and timeless ZGF buildings, not just from recent years but over the decades.

In a way, I think the KOIN Center is indicative of ZGF's enduring quality as much as its impressive and highly sustainable green projects. There is so much postmodern and neo-historic architecture of the 1980s that hasn't aged well at all. But KOIN has a timeless quality that transcends 1980s style; it's almost like a brick-clad Chrysler Building in how it elegantly tapers towards the top.

Portland International Airport canopy (Travel Portland)

When I think of ZGF over the years, I also think one of their best works is not a building per se: the canopy at Portland International Airport. ZGF's fingerprint is all over that airport, from expanded concourses to the innovative Port of Portland headquarters there next to the parking garages to even the MAX train leading there (the firm designed many of its stations). But being under that glass canopy is always a thrilling moment. Whenever I'm about to fly out or I'm there picking someone up, I almost always stop and marvel at the sensation of being underneath a glass roof bigger than a couple of football fields. It's functional — the roof is there to keep the rain off us without compromising the light — and yet it brings a sense of wonder.

What does the future hold in Portland for the firm?

Despite its tremendous success both business-wise and architecturally, the firm's true roots lie in civic and institutional projects, like the Oregon Convention Center and Doernbecher Children's Hospital. But Portland lacks the public and private wealth of other major cities that is often necessary to make such works happen regularly. Hence ZGF's strong presence outside the city with offices in several cities. But there is more to be done here of that scale. I'll bet ZGF would have done a better-looking and more Portland-appropriate headquarters hotel by the Convention Center than Metro is about to get. OHSU is also expanding steadily onto its South Waterfront campus, which seems tailor made for the firm. And as a longtime proponent of Veterans Memorial Coliseum restoration, I'd be happier seeing ZGF on the job than a firm that would mistakenly put too much of its own fingerprint on Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's masterful original 1960 design.

And with one of the biggest waves of new construction the city has seen in a century, I expect to see a host of new ZGF office buildings and condos appear in the ensuing years as well. Chances are when they come, they won't necessarily get as much attention as bolder competing works by other firms, but these buildings will endure and exhibit a sense of quality craftsmanship, sustainable performance and restrained handsomness that will mean architecture critics and passers-by of 2076 will appreciate them as much of those of us in 2016.

  

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The architecture of history: visiting Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, newly added to National Register

Stained glass at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

As I arrived at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church on a recent weekday morning, the neighborhood seemed full of energy as well as change.

I'd been a few minutes early for a tour of the church, so I popped into get coffee at the busy New Seasons Market two blocks north of the church, on Fremont Street, which is surrounded by new development such as the One North and Radiator office buildings. To the southwest I could see the newish Randall Children's Hospital. Just across Fargo Street, smoke was already wafting from barbecue outpost The People's Pig, also fairly new to that location. The sound of construction hammers and saws could also be heard from a nearby apartment building project.

If this Albina area of North and Northeast Portland has transformed over the past decade, that's all the more reason to double down on preserving its traditional landmarks and their occupants. Which is why one couldn't help but greet with pleasure the listing of the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church on the National Register of Historic Places.

After all, not only was this church once the largest African-American congregation in the Pacific Northwest, and not only has it long been a cornerstone of Portland's African American community, but it is also the place where one of the 20th century's greatest and most important leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., spoke on his lone trip to Portland.

The congregation calling Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church home began in humbler confines. Thousands of African Americans had come to the Pacific Northwest during World War II to work in the Kaiser shipyards, and the congregation first met and formed in a shipyard worker’s housing project in Vancouver, Washington called Burton Homes.

The church pre-expansion, and as photographed for Burell's book (VAFBC)

But when the war ended in 1945, the housing complex was shut down and the congregation moved to a nearby community center called Bagley Downs. Within a year it closed too, and the congregation occupied a Masonic temple at North Russell Street and Rodney Avenue. But the number of worshippers kept swelling, causing the church in 1947 to take possession of a condemned apartment building at Vancouver Avenue and Hancock Street, with parishioners volunteering to rebuild the structure over three months.

Soon the congregation had its hands full in another way: in 1948, the Vanport flood displaced about 18,000 residents, many of them African-American, including many Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church members. With little assistance from local, state or federal government, congregation members helped each other, and received assistance from two national Baptist organizations.

And the congregation, particularly after a lot of its members moved south from Vanport, continued to grow, which in 1951 prompted one last move: to its current home at 3138 Vancouver Avenue.

A 1958 service, and King's 1961 visit (Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church)

The building was first constructed in 1909 from a design by Richard H. Martin, an English-born longtime Portland architect whose firm designed local landmarks like the First Regiment Armory Annex (now the Gerding Theater) in 1891, the Dekum Building in 1892, and the Scottish Rite Temple in 1902. This church was originally the Central Methodist Episcopal Church, serving a congregation of many Scandinavian immigrants who called Albina home in the early part of the century. The church building was put up for sale in 1951 after the CMEC decided to merge with another congregation, perhaps in part responding to the neighborhood's demographic change.

With its twin spires and an interior featuring hand-carved wooden pews and stained glass from the legendary Povey Brothers Studio, this gothic revival style church was a more majestic home than Vancouver Avenue First Baptist's congregation had ever known. And with room for 600 parishioners, it would serve its ever-growing congregation.

Over the ensuing years this neighborhood would continue to change drastically. Massive projects like Emmanuel Hospital, Memorial Coliseum and Interstate 5 cut significantly into the mostly African American neighborhoods near the church, especially to the west and south. Institutional racism also kept much of the neighborhood from regenerating. But the VAFBC kept on growing, with an additional expansion begun in 1955 and completed in 1958. These expansions are still visible inside the church.

As the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s blossomed, naturally the congregation was involved, with the church strengthening its ties with organizations like the NAACP and the National Urban league. A highlight was the visit to Portland by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1961. After attending an Equal Opportunity Day celebration at Portland State University, he delivered a sermon at Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church . In the ensuing years, the church became active in voter-registration drives, which substantially increased the number of local African Americans registered to vote. The church also became a center of protest, such as a 1963 demonstration outside its confines after the assassination of Medgar Evers. In 1962, the church led a successful boycott of Fred Meyer stores to protest its refusal to hire black clerks. Another demonstration in 1963 was held outside the church after four young African-American girls were murdered in Birmingham. When King was assassinated in 1968, Vancouver Avenue First Baptist hosted a memorial service that included remarks from then-mayor Terry Shrunk and Oregon governor Tom McCall. In subsequent years, the church has hosted prominent leaders like California governor Jerry Brown in 1976 (while he was running for president), Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1983, and civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy in 1987.

Although many years ago I worked within a couple blocks of the church, last week was my fist glimpse inside, with a tour led by Raymond Burell, the church's historian and author of Vancouver Avenue: Yesterday, Today and Forever (Arnica Publishing), a history of the church.

I arrived a little early, taking time to walk around the building and take in the view from across Vancouver. Looking at the wood-framed structure with corrugated metal siding and brick veneer from outside, it seemed pretty clear that the church has been added onto and altered numerous times, with its exterior stairway clogging the front of the building.

Yet particularly in light of all the shiny condo and apartment buildings nearby these days, I came to think of this altered look to the building as a kind of badge of honor: proof that the church, from its beginnings as the Scandinavian immigrants' Methodist church and continuing from its rebirth as the VAFBC and subsequent expansions, as host and witness to the tumultuous times of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam era, continuing through the decades with the transformation of nearly everything around it.

The way that this building has been altered numerous times has, at least in my mind, become its aesthetic more than any of the historical cues or the materials add up to. Sometimes the miles you see on a person, or a building, can be more beautiful than a perfect or expensively put together pretty face. The physical structure at Vancouver and Fargo isn't a conventionally beautiful building, and yet I sincerely see beauty there.

Moving inside, I was struck by a kind of dichotomy to the interiors. On one hand, it had the elegant old pews and the gorgeous Povey Brothers stained glass. (The Poveys were known as the "Tiffany of the Northwest" and their work can be seen at the Pittock Mansion and several other local landmarks.) On the other hand, it had fluorescent lights on the ceiling (although admittedly there were also the original light fixtures for the church, suspended pendant lights of warm colored glass and brass). What I enjoyed about the visit to Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, though, was the sense that I was visiting a place that had really mattered to people for generations, and had provided a kind of spiritual foundation to its parishioners as well as a community anchor.

Inside Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church (Brian Libby)

Much has been made of the fact that this area of close-in North and Northeast Portland is not, or not as predominantly, an African American enclave as it once was. Williams Avenue, which is named for longtime Vancouver Avenue First Baptist pastor O.B. Williams, is known more for its stream of bike commuters and its wave of new development these days, a veritable poster child for gentrification and high-density development. Many or perhaps a majority of its new residents over the past decade have been Caucasians. There have even been efforts in the neighborhood, amidst this change, to create what's called a Soul District stretching from Interstate Avenue past Martin Luther King Boulevard in North and Northeast (including the land that VAFBC belongs to) that would combine public and private resources to encourage a diversity of businesses and business owners.

I can't tell you if neighborhoods that have historically been home to one culture should remain that way, or if demographics are always inevitably fluid. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between, where amid that inevitable fluidity we come to look upon a select few institutions and places in the built environment to both tell the story of what came before and keep that history alive and relevant in perpetuity (or as close as we can get). Albina may not be home to a lot of Scandinavian immigrants, for example, but there ought to be some evidence and narrative of that history.

That notion is perhaps even more important when it comes to the city's African American history and North/Northeast Portland's collection of churches. Sadly, Portland and Oregon are not as diverse as many (or most) other parts of the country, which means we have all the more collective responsibility to nurture and listen to the minority voices this place does have. Whether it's through a Soul District that encourages and empowers people today, or by protecting our historic building fabric with measures such as National Register listings for VAFBC and perhaps some of the other churches dotting North and Northeast (be they continuing as ecclesiastical or preserved for other uses), we can't stop change, but we can work to assure that change isn't necessarily an outright flip from past to present so much as a continuing narrative thread.

I also found a degree of solace visiting this traditionally African American church amidst a time of national crisis. In July a Pew Research Center poll found that about 78 percent of white evangelical voters favor Donald Trump and his fascist presidential campaign, perhaps the most un-Christian of any major-party candidacy in American history. My visit to Vancouver Avenue First Baptist had nothing to do with politics or liberalism versus conservatism. In a way, it didn't even have much to do with religion at all. It was just a desire to take a peak inside this local institution that had been named to the National Register. Even so, what I had appreciated visiting was the chance to learn about the people who founded, built, expanded and maintained this church (both physically and socially) over the generations, much of it despite an onslaught of societal and institutional bigotry; by necessity, most African American churches are part of their communities' campaigns for social justice. If there is a dark cloud forming over the United States, maybe there is something to learn in such perseverance, even for those of us who don't attend church.

 

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Design calendar: September 16-30

Standard Insurance Center and Gilbert Building (Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

How To Research The History Of Your House
Ever wonder who lived in your house before you did, or what your house looked like originally? Historians Tibby O’Brien and Morgen Young will discuss how to uncover the history of one's vintage house (as well as any other building). Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, September 17. $12 ($8 for AHC members).

Portland URM Seismic Retrofit Project
Three City of Portland bureaus—the Bureau of Development Services, the Bureau of Emergency Management and the Portland Development Commission—have joined together to form the Portland URM Seismic Retrofit Project, which seeks to address seismic retrofitting of the city's 1,700 public and privately-owned unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. This is the second of two public forums meant to bring feedback on a draft proposal being created. Portland Development Commission, 222 NW Fifth Avenue. 6PM Thursday, September 22. Free. 

End of Summer Rummer House Tour
This tour, benefitting Restore Oregon, focuses on the Oak Hills neighborhood of Beaverton and the cluster of homes there built by noted midcentury homebuilder Robert Rummer. These homes have often been compared to the better-known Eichler Homes of California, and feature terrific natural light while effortlessly fusing indoor and outdoor space. 10AM Saturday, September 17. $35 ($25 for Restore Oregon members).

Pioneers To Postmodern tour
Take a whirlwind tour of the entire range of Portland's architectural history. Visitors on this Architectural Heritage Center tour will learn about the first wooden structures near the river as well as the elaborate cast iron, stone and terra cotta decorated buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From there one will be transported into the modern age and the sleek designs of Pietro Belluschi and the postmodernism of Michael Graves. Tour begins at southwest corner of SW Pine Street and Naito Parkway. 10AM Saturday, September 24. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

50 Years Of Historic Preservation In Portland
President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Historic Preservation Act into law on October 15, 1966. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Architectural Heritage Center will host a panel discussion looking at how historic preservation (and sometimes the lack thereof) has impacted the Portland area. Panelists include William Hawkins, architect and author of Classic Houses of Portland: 1850-1950; former Architectural Heritage Center executive director Cathy Galbraith; and Brandon Spencer-Hartle of the City of Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Architectural Heritage Center, 701 SE Grand Avenue. 10AM Saturday, September 24. Free.

Fall at The Shire
Take a tour, bring a picnic, camera, or drawing pad, and enjoy a day at The Shire, the 78-acre picturesque landscape designed by John Yeon. With an unobstructed view of Multnomah Falls exactly a mile away, The Shire offers an experience of the landscape not be missed. Walk the trails and learn the story of Yeon's life-long advocacy for protection of the  Gorge, culminating in the National Scenic Act that now protects--the campaign for which began at The Shire. Due to maintenance, this will be the final tour of The Shire this year. 11AM Sunday, September 25. $20-30 sliding scale.

Last Sundays at the Watzek House
The University of Oregon's John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape invites the public to tour Portland's only National Historic Landmark residence, the Aubrey Watzek House. Completed in 1937, the home's bold yet timeless synthesis of many traditions of residential architecture into a refined new language became an important inspiration for the Northwest Style of Modernism. Published widely and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art next to such icons as Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. Watzek House, 1061 SW Skyline Boulevard. 1:30PM Sunday, September 25. $20-30 sliding scale (free for students and Yeon Center members).

Architects Without Borders: Focus on Community Engagement
The latest meeting of the Architects Without Borders Oregon chapter features two guest speakers who will discuss community engagement and how effective practices contribute to good design and project success. Planner Anita Yap is founder of the MultiCultural Collaborative, which has guided community engagement processes for Portland's Jade District Visioning Plan, Cully Park Safe Access Project, and the Powell-Division Transit and Development Project. Lucas Gray is with Propel Studio, a firm that advocates for community engagement as one of the tenets of its practice. Recently Propel worked with residents of a Japanese farming town to come up with new ideas for an unused nursery school building. In Portland's Montavilla neighborhood, collaboration with parents and other stakeholders yielded a design for a play shelter at Vestal Elementary School. Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 6PM Wednesday, September 28. Free.

 

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Bora's Brad Demby talks about The Cosmopolitan, now Portland's tallest residential building

Cosmopolitan Tower from NW 10th Avenue (Jeremy Bittermann)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Although Portland is growing and building in nearly every corner these days amidst a construction (and demolition) boom, in the 21st century no neighborhood has represented our city's transformation more than the Pearl district, where a one-time industrial enclave has given way to a forest of condominium towers.

But there have always been two distinct halves to the Pearl: its southern portion closest to Downtown, where new buildings take inspiration from the old warehouses, and the northern portion, redeveloped from former rail yards where there is no existing architectural context and the designs are more strictly contemporary. And for the most part, the northern Pearl has come to have taller buildings than the southern Pearl. In particular, as development has reached the district's northern terminus, the Fremont Bridge, there have been taller, skinnier buildings sitting on podiums - sometimes known as point towers.

The latest such building is now the tallest residential work of architecture in the city: The Cosmopolitan, designed by Bora Architects (formerly known as Boora) for developer Hoyt Street Properties.

Recently, after touring The Cosmopolitan with Bora's Brad Demby, we discussed the design of the building, its inspiration and context.

Portland Architecture: The Cosmopolitan is being called Portland’s latest point tower. How do you define it? Do you see this as a Vancouver thing transplanted to Oregon, or a broader phenomenon?

Brad Demby: I think in the mid-2000s when we were working on The Metropolitan, there was this idea of looking to Vancouver and these smaller tower buildings. When I think of a point tower, it’s the idea of Vancouver and these skinny towers that are sitting on podiums. The idea there and in Portland is to acknowledge if you just let developers built to full FAR on a site, you could end up with lower but massive buildings, creating these canyons, 7 or 8 stories tall but very massive. But by going with the point tower idea, which to me means a building that seems thin over a podium. It seems to be a kind of west coast, Pacific Northwest thing. Around here, I think it just means a thinner tower. A lot of our buildings here in Portland are pretty low.

The reason we worked to encourage this idea of a thinner floorplate tower was because of the parks. The northern portion of the Pearl seems pretty different from the southern Pearl, which is referencing the older warehouse buildings. Everything is kind of new in the north Pearl. By going tall you preserve sunlight from the park, and views from one building to the other. We can get out of the way of the sunlight hitting the Metropolitan tower. That was the idea of verticality in the area, to provide that amenity of light and views.

 

Cosmopolitan Tower from NW 10th Avenue (Jeremy Bittermann)

I think of this building kind of sitting by itself, between two parks. I think it was always going to be an icon. Hoyt brought this idea to us. We played around with how tall tall should be before it overtakes the neighborhood.

And just in terms of living, if you look at the converted warehouses, they are often deep, long units stretching back. By making the tower’s floor plan smaller, they’re just better units, because people have less deep, thinner units with more glass. It’s really about what it’s like to live in one of these buildings: less depth to the center of the floor plate, so you have smaller, rectangular units that are not deep and shoebox like but are turned sideways more often or not.

This will be the tallest residential building in Portland. How tall were you allowed to go on this site? How did you arrive at the height you did?

You’re not limited at all if you reduce the size of the floor plate of your tower to less than 12,500 square feet. You can go as high as you want. You’re only limited by how much FAR [floor area ratio] you have or some kind of structural solution you don’t want to spend. The Cosmopolitan is about 340 feet tall. If you go much taller, you trip the kind of structural system you have to have, which costs a lot more. We’re at the max height before we would have had to graduate to what’s called a dual or bilateral system. We have a moment-frame. It’s more or less a standard core building system where the post tension slabs feed to a central core. When you go higher you have to switch to something more robust. The good thing about being able to do these smaller floor plates is it’s more daylight and more views. The hard part for a developer and why it’s impressive what Hoyt Properties [the Cosmopolitan’s developer] is doing is it’s more expensive. You’re paying for a lot more skin on the building. There’s a lot more surface area than a squat building with larger floor plates. It’s definitely a commitment to do something nice.

Doesn’t the height of the Cosmopolitan speak to the northern Pearl having its own identity? It seems arguably more like South Waterfront than the southern portion of the Pearl.

I think they [Hoyt Street] wanted to do something special here. The Cosmopolitan is their best property because it’s between the Fields Park and Tanner Springs Park. It was always going to have the best views, and the views of it from the park. I think they wanted to do something special, and be one of the first developers of condominiums after the recession. I think it paid off. The building’s something like 90 percent sold out right now. The tower is the thinnest they’ve done: 8,500 square feet. You could have gone up to 12,000. But the idea of this tower is you more or less have a corner unit no matter what, by default because the building’s’ so small.

I’d also like to ask you about the building’s glass façade, which to my eyes seems more or less reflective depending on the time of day and how the sun is hitting it.

In general we wanted the building to be bright. We wanted a certain amount of reflectivity in the glass. If you look at a building with low reflectivity, you kind of see into the rooms beyond. The darkness of the room informs what you see. We wanted the skin to reflect the sun and the clouds around it. We didn’t want a dark building. It’s something Hoyt likes and we appreciate too. And it helps with energy, too, to have more reflectivity. It’s reflecting out more UV rays.

Views from The Cosmopolitan (Brian Libby)

More specifically, there’s a transmittance value in the glass that allows a certain amount of light to come through or doesn’t: a chemical built into the glass. It has a kind of normal amount of transmittance but a variable level of reflectivity. Sometimes it appears very transparent, sometimes very reflective, and there are stages in between. We’re pretty happy. We’ re on the eighth floor of a building downtown where I can watch The Cosmopolitan throughout the day. It’s always interesting how different it looks through the day or a different day. What’s more, I can see it from Highway 26 and it’s completely different from that angle.

Given the building’s height and its position at the northern edge of the Pearl, as well as its simple elegance, I’ve compared it in my mind to the US Bancorp Tower—Big Pink. Has your team thought much about that comparison, or about the conversation it seems like these two buildings seem to be having?

We always thought of that building. We weren’t trying to compete with Big Pink, but were aware of its prominence as a tall building in the central city. Portland’s growing everywhere, but because of the Fremont Bridge, we thought of this building as the northernmost point of the central city. It’s unlikely any building will be this height in the area, but there will be buildings that will be taller. It won’t be the only tall building, but we think it will be a marker to the north of the central city. I think in terms of its form, we strived not for minimalism but a simplicity of form. Because you’d see it from so far away, it didn't need to be overly complex, but just simple and frank. But we worked hard on the shaping of the tower to reflect light in subtle ways. We inset decks to fracture the overall massing of the tower and shift the planes ever so slightly. On the east elevation, which you see from the east side of the city or the bridges, it shifts a few degrees, the angle of two planes, so it reflects light differently. We did some subtle moves to the massing based on how these units worked with their deck spaces. The logic of one thing would inform the other along the way. We looked at how the units could take advantage of these corners spaces with outdoor decks surrounded on three sides, and letting that drive the form of the tower in a simple way.

With the Cosmopolitan, you’re kind of splitting one already skinny form into four parts. All of those indentations relate back to the units. It’s sort of a fun way of thinking about the building: that the building would inform the units and the units would inform the tower, with these deep gashes running through the building. And we wanted them to shift, and not have just one straight vertical line. We wanted to express changes as you go up the building, so the kind of crystalline fracturing isn’t just one straight form. All of that terminated into the roof. We dint’ want to have a top so much as dissolve against the sky. By clustering the mechanical systems we could extend one little piece higher and mask the equipment with this little top. We didn’t want to put a beanie on the building. We wanted it to kind of erode.

Is there anything you’d like to see change about height limitations in Portland?

I think there's a thoughtful way of doing it. I think that one really great thing I love about Portland, being from a smaller city in the South, is being downtown and looking up the street and seeing the West Hills: this wall of green in the distance. If we can encourage buildings to be thin on their site, even smaller than the already small 200 by 200 feet, you can see past and beyond them, and I think there’s value in that. They’re enhanced when they’re against that backdrop. I’m a pro-density person, so imagining ways to provide density in a city that needs it, one of the best ways I think is to make the street level feel welcoming. I think for the six-story podiums, they’re nicer than 10-story 200 by 200-foot buildings. There are great examples of great buildings that do that, but if you think about the quality of life in a building, it increases when people can have light and view. And when people can kind of see past them, I think it’s a nicer city. We worked hard on the podium too, so at times up and in and make it more friendly.

The Cosmopolitan from The Fields Park (Jeremy Bittermann)

Podiums for point towers can act like a smaller building in terms of intimacy, reaching to the sidewalk, versus midcentury buildings with plazas. Maybe it’s impossible given the Portland context in particular to separate the notion of skinny point towers from their bases. But you’ve also done more than most architects to make the Cosmopolitan’s podium and tower feel one.

You definitely feel removed from it when the building face is 30 feet from you. It doesn’t feel as cozy. The pedestrian experience is so great in Portland, it’s almost irresponsible not to go to the property line. We did that, and wherever there was a need for a canopy, we carved that back into the building. That related back to the podium’s relationship to the tower. It’s really meant to be one thing, not just a stake on top of a donut. A point tower to me does infer a tower sitting on top of a low podium. We tried to get away from that a little to make it feel like one mass, with one glass for the whole thing.

A lot of times I think podium buildings in town might spend more so that the parts closer to the street might be a higher quality materials than the tower. You see that a lot in cities now. You think of the best buildings in Portland, especially the old ones, it’s often one material. It’s not what drives the massing or the concept of the building. Like the Yeon building downtown. It’s beautiful but it’s one material with different levels of ornament. How we look at architecture is we try not to paint with different materials as much as possible. And because this building is tall, we felt from the beginning a curtain wall was the right answer even though it’s expensive, considering the wind pressure and the kind of enduring quality: you want to make sure it’s a quality building from the start. We wanted to just kind of pick the best material and stick with it.

Why this building is what it is also relates to Hoyt’s desire to have different buildings to market in different ways. They wanted this building to have a kind of different statement from their other holdings.

 

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Design calendar: September 1-15

"Case Work" (Portland Art Museum)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Case Work: Studies in Form, Space & Construction by Brad Cloepfil/Allied Works Architecture
This week brings the final days for this first comprehensive museum exhibition (which initially premiered at the Denver Art Museum) exploring the sculptures and drawings of Allied Works Architecture. This is not a mere collection of architectural models sitting on vitrines and pretty pictures of completed projects. Rather, it is a window into the creative process that Brad Cloepfil and his team go through, with a series of conceptual models and drawings. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue. 10AM-5PM Thursday-Saturday, September 1-3. $19.99 for adults, $16.99 seniors and college students, children free.

Portland Vernacular: The Buckman Neighborhood
Buckman is one of the city’s oldest eastside neighborhoods with a variety of vernacular housing types beginning with late 19th century cottages through the building boom years of the early 20th century when the bungalow and four-square were popular citywide. Attendees on this Architectural Heritage Center tour will also see some early duplex and triplex houses that give Buckman a unique character as well as post-World War II multi-unit housing. Tour begins at SE 14th and Alder behind Washington High School. 10AM Saturday, September 3. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

The Houses Of Eastmoreland
The Eastmoreland neighborhood is known throughout Portland for its undulating pattern of dense, tree-lined streets and landscaped yards. Once farmland, the housing in Eastmoreland was largely constructed between 1925 and 1940. Along this Architectural Heritage Center tour, attendees will see not only some fantastic architect-designed houses in period revival styles, but also their popular yet not architect-designed counterparts. Tour begins at SE Woodstock and Reed College Place. 11AM Sunday, September 4. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Living in a Historic District: What Does It Mean to You?
Restore Oregon invites the public to participate in a free forum and learn what living in a historic district is all about. What are the rules? Are there costs? And why might it offer protection to your home and neighborhood. Ask questions of an expert panel and figure out what historic district designation means to you. Panelists include Ian Johnson of the State of Oregon Historic Preservation Office, Hillary Adam from the City of Portland's Bureau of Development Services, City of Portland Historic Landmarks Commission member Jessica Engeman of Venerable Properties,  Irvington Historic District resident Jim Heuer, as well as architect and Ladd’s Addition Historic District resident Henry Kunowski. 10th Church of Christ Scientist, 5736 SE 17th Avenue. 6PM Thursday, September 8. Free.

Classical Downtown Portland Tour
Downtown Portland contains an extensive collection of classically influenced buildings, many of which are clad with glazed terra cotta, a building material that was at its height of popularity in the early 20th century. Visitors on this Architectural Heritage Center tour will see the city’s first “skyscraper,” a bank that could have been a Greek temple and learn about several architects from this period who left an indelible impression on Portland including A.E. Doyle, the firm of Whidden and Lewis, and the Reid Brothers from San Francisco. Tour begins on SW Broadway at Pioneer Courthouse Square, above the fountain. 10AM Saturday, September 10. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

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