Portland Architecture

Late mid-century modern, new century: the Portland Plaza after its 10-year, $10 million renovation

Portland Plaza (Wikiwand)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Fritz Junker is a persistent guy. A longtime condo owner at the Portland Plaza building downtown, he has been toiling on and off for a decade now to see the place renovated: to get scores of his fellow condo owners, many of them elderly, to agree to a series of moves that were costly on a per-person basis, but in return have the building looking better than it has since it was completed in 1973. The building is now ready for its 45th anniversary close-up.

It began with a series of facade repairs, but ultimately blossomed into a more extensive and full-scale renovation of the building's lobby and public spaces inside and out, including a large surrounding plaza for which the building is named. Opsis Architecture, interiors firm Staicoff Design Company and landscape design firm Lango Hansen all collaborated on the inside-out restoration.

"This building has such a strong voice," Opsis's Jim Kalvelage told me as we began a recent tour. "You just want to listen to it."

The Portland Plaza was designed by Los Angeles firm DMJM, which as of the late 1960s onward was co-led by by César Pelli; he obviously has become famous for a host of buildings around the world while leading a firm of his own, such as the World Financial Center in New York, the Petronas Towers in Malaysia (tallest in the world from 1998-2004) and the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco. DMJM itself was later, in 1984, folded into the gigantic international firm AECOM. In the late '60s, DMJM pioneered the glass membrane facade design system. "By reversing the mullions (vertical elements that separate windows) inward rather than outward, the system enabled completely new ways of 'wrapping' buildings in glass, creating smooth curtain walls," explains a brief history of DMJM from the Los Angeles Conservancy. The firm, the Conservancy argues, "literally changed the face of corporate architecture in the late twentieth century." Their noteworthy mid-century projects in L.A., ranging from buildings to landscape design to transportation, included the American Cement Building and MacArthur Park.

The building is both distinctive and prominent. It was the first residential building in downtown Portland to occupy a full city block. Like the Standard Plaza down the street, which was the first office building on a full block, the added space gives the building room to breathe in relation to its neighbors and it offers a generous amount of ground floor outdoor space. In the Portland Plaza's case, you can't stare at Lawrence Halprin's magnificent Keller Fountain (which New York Times critic Ada Louise Huxtable once called the best public space since the Renaissance) without seeing the building towering above it with the help of not just its own 25 stories but a sloping topography.

The Portland Plaza on the skyline (Brian Libby) and seen from above (Google Maps)

The Portland Plaza is often referred to by a nickname, the Norelco building, because of its shape, which is like the electric shaver of the same name: three circles forming a triangle. Rather than the Norelco building one could also note its resemblance (when seen from directly above, at least) to a flower. Regardless of what you call it, the building's form is part of the time from whence it came.

The early 1970s historically in architecture would probably be associated more with concrete and Brutalism than with glass curtain walls. In this way, the Plaza could be more associated with the more glass and steel-oriented modern architecture of the '60s. The aforementioned Standard Plaza and Veterans Memorial Coliseum—dating to 1963 and 1960, respectively, and both designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill—are two local examples. Yet there is something to the curvy form of the DMJM design for the Portland Plaza that, at least to my eyes, is the tip-off that it's actually from the '70s.

As I visited the project with Junker and Opsis's Jim Kalvelage, we first stopped to see a new glass entry awning that curves outward in a shape similar to the building. The old canopy was actually not original to the design but added five years later, in 1978, after the Portland Plaza initially didn't sell well. People had been living in or near downtown for decades, but many of those immigrant neighborhoods were eradicated during the 1950s and '60s by urban renewal.

When it was completed in 1973, just three years after the Keller Fountain (known then as the Forecourt Fountain), the idea of contemporary or luxury living in Portland, especially in a tower, was new. There were the nearby Harrison Tower Apartments, completed in 1965, but not too many others. So the Portland Plaza was symbolic of downtown becoming more vertical and possibly more of a place to live. As it turned out, there weren't to many other residential towers built downtown in the ensuing years, until maybe the nearby KOIN Center in 1984. Apparently the extras added in 1978 helped, because the building soon filled up, including, the story goes, a member or two of the Trail Blazers who enjoyed making use of the hot tub.

The Portland Plaza's library and lobby (Brian Libby)

We next moved inside, where Staicoff Design's re-imagination of the lobby and a few additional tenant areas such as a small library and reading room is very well done. In the lobby where one enters, the moves are fairly simple. There used to be more of a barrier between the entry and the elevators, but Staicoff created a better balance with some colorful and decorative screens that sit atop a contemporary fireplace. There is a band of stained wood that extends from a far wall and continues across the ceiling to frame the seating area as something a bit cozier.

My favorite space on the ground floor, though, was a few feet away: a library that's got one wall clad completely in wood (with a line of built-in bookshelves along the lower portion) and another wall (forming the exterior of the building) of floor-to-ceiling glass. This library existed before the renovation, I believe including both walls. But it feels brighter, less dusty and forgotten now, and more elegant. A change-out of the curtains to something more whispy and transparent certainly helped, as did new furniture.

Our tour then moved back outside, to the extended plaza extending east from the back of the building. This is actually where one of the biggest transformations occurred.

The Portland Plaza's plaza (Brian Libby)

The outdoor plaza here becomes a kind of podium as it faces Fourth Avenue, which is down the hill from Fifth and ought to have long offered views of the Keller Fountain. But the western side of the podium, particularly at the northeast corner, was filled with overgrown pine trees that actually blocked that view. Junker called it a "dead corner." Now, it's anything but. There is still plenty of shade, provided by the mature street trees below; in fact, they make it like being in the treetops because of the grade change. And the podium itself, here and extending back toward the building, is a place of multiple covered cooking areas, new seating, and a re-done swimming pool: a Myrtha stainless steel pool that was shipped here from Italy. When I visited, on a very hot day with a haze of forest fire smoke, it was quite tempting to just dive right in.

As my tour neared its conclusion, I started thinking further about the notion of a residential tower like the Portland Plaza that sits back from the street without retail frontage. There have been many condo and apartment towers built in the city over the past decade, particularly in the Pearl District and the South Waterfront. Nearly all of them have a podium base of two to three stories that comes all the way to the property line. It's in keeping with Portland's emphasis, through its Design Commission reviewing central-city buildings, on a rich pedestrian experience. Most all of us like having retail storefronts to pass by as we walk down the sidewalk, looking into their windows to get a glimpse inside to a restaurant or a shop.

Portland Plaza on a recent smoke-filled afternoon (Brian Libby)

Yet the very nature of retail is fundamentally changing. While we'll always need places to eat and drink, and to buy certain essentials, online shopping is causing a major, long-term decline in physical retail. Much of that decline is taking its biggest toll on big-box retail chains and shopping malls, the places I avoid like the plague. But it's not exclusively killing off retail spaces that are as big as blimp hangars and corporate chains without a whiff of authenticity. It's happening to mom-and-pop retail too. If Portland keeps building mixed-use buildings all over town with ground-floor retail, can we really fill those retail spaces? If not, do we really need all those podiums?

Meanwhile, I will continue to have a soft spot for the Portland Plaza. For me there has always been something heroic about its architectural form. Though at 272 feet it's only the 20th-tallest building in Portland, it's a slender tower, with elegant proportions. And if you actually look at the list of tallest buildings, take a look at their shapes. Except for the John Ross Tower in South Waterfront and its particularly unattractive neighbor, The Mirabella, the rest of the top 10 tall buildings are rectangular. Some might have funny-looking tops like the slanted solar panels of the Edith Green Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, or pointed tops like the KOIN Center, but they are all basically the same forms. Yet there is nothing else like the sculptural form of the Portland Plaza, whether you liken it to a Norelco shaver or a flower or just see it as a trio of aluminum and glass-clad cylinders connected in the middle.

Though Halprin's fountain will always be the star of this outdoor room, the waterfall at the center of the scene and the design that made it into the history books, the Portland Plaza is the beacon: a relic from the days of bell-bottoms and eight-track tapes, but also a piece of local mid-century modern architecture that feels timeless. Thankfully buildings like this are powerful enough to attract champions who won't let them deteriorate away.

 

 

 

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Memorial Coliseum as muse: visiting Avantika Bawa's Portland Art Museum exhibit

A Coliseum drawing from Bawa's PAM show (Avantika Bawa)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Attending the opening reception last Friday for artist Avantika Bawa's new exhibition at the Portland Art Museum, part of the APEX series devoted to Pacific Northwest artists and comprised of a series of drawings devoted entirely to Veteran's Memorial Coliseum, was a treat in so many ways. And it wasn't just a treat. It was a validation.

Nine years and four months ago, Portland's then-mayor, Sam Adams, announced that Memorial Coliseum would be demolished to make way for a minor-league baseball stadium, as part of the larger effort to make Providence Park a soccer-only stadium for the Portland Timbers. At the public announcement, Adams was surprised to find a room full of Coliseum supporters opposing his demolition plan.

Since that night, there have been peaks and valleys aplenty. Adams ultimately reversed course, and sought a renovation plan that failed to reach a vote in City Council before his term ended. The building has avoided demolition threats a few times in the ensuing years, most notably from former City Council members Steve Novick and Randy Leonard, both of whom have now left office. But it has also received a National Register of Historic Places listing from the National Park Service in 2011, and a National Treasure listing from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2016. The building even received a modest $2.5 million renovation in 2017. It is still waiting for the full-scale restoration it deserves, which third-party economic studies commissioned by the City of Portland have shown would turn a profit.

Looking at Bawa's magnificent artworks Friday night, I couldn't help but marvel at how far the building has come. Even if it's still waiting for that restoration — and when public buildings wait this long it's often known as "demolition by neglect" — over these nine years the tide has more than turned. I used to hear a fair amount of skepticism from members of the public, especially conservatives. Why would anyone try to save a simple glass box like that? Everybody knows only old buildings with gargoyles get saved. Why would anyone try to preserve an NBA team's home after the team moves out? There were always easy answers to those misguided questions: modernism can be historic too, and arenas can stay busy without basketball. Yet the point is that much of the skepticism has gone away.

Seeing the Coliseum given such reverential and heroic treatment from a talented artist was a moment to savor.

At Bawa's Friday evening exhibit opening (Brian Libby)

I first met Bawa in 2015 during her show at the University of Oregon's White Box gallery, "Aqua Mapping," which explored the history, topography and climate of three separate locations. Much of Bawa's art is like this: displaying a localized scrutiny on one place, or in this case, one building. In the case of Memorial Coliseum, her focus is even tighter.

In these nearly two dozen drawings on display in the Apex show, she focuses solely on exterior views of the Coliseum, depicting its facade in a way that emphasizes the grid-like face of this circa-1960 building by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. In none of these drawings, for example, does one see the concrete seating bowl inside the glass box. In a talk with Grace Kook-Anderson, the museum's curator of Northwest art, Bawa discussed the fact that to introduce the bowl would have been to widen her focus too much, and that artistically she was for now focused on just the grid-like appearance of the exterior. (She explained that the bowl could be a subject of future artworks.)

Bawa also discussed with Kook-Anderson artistic influences on her work such as Agnes Martin, with her serene grids and stripes, and Piet Mondrian, with his blocks of color. I also saw some of Bridget Riley's pattern-making style, and in one piece of Bawa's, which depicts solely the white top of the Coliseum, I was reminded of the abstract-expressionist "zip" paintings of Barnett Newman.

One comment I heard from time to time at Friday's opening was curiosity about the fate of the building. Even for those decidedly in the pro-renovation camp, the Coliseum saga has dragged on for so long now that it's easy to lose track of what's going on. Basically, I told those who asked, the Coliseum is in better shape than it's been in years thanks to last year's $2.5 million "refresh," as it was called. The National Treasure listing in 2016, and the National Trust's ensuing and ongoing involvement, have helped cement perception of the Coliseum as an architectural landmark too special and too busy to tear down. (It continues to host over 100 events a year and break even.)

Bawa with curator Grace Kook-Anderson, and another Coliseum drawing (Brian Libby)

Last year's introduction of the Albina Vision, an urban design plan for the Rose Quarter designed by Hennebery Eddy for a consortium led by Zari Santner and the Meyer Memorial Trust's Rukaiyah Adams, also helped articulate the Coliseum as part of a future high-density, mixed-use neighborhood. City leaders responded positively to the plan, which helps stitch back together the neighborhood that used to be there before Interstate 5, Emanuel Hospital and the Coliseum itself were built. The Coliseum can actually be part of revitalizing the neighborhood that used to be there, acting not just as a place for concerts and sporting events but as a building serving the community.

Yet these ongoing dramas should not form the narrative of Bawa's show. You don't have to know about urban-renewal financing or City Hall politics or the economics of large entertainment venues to appreciate Avantika's drawings. In a way, you don't even have to have an abiding love of the Coliseum itself. You just have to stand there and let her drawings wash over you. I appreciate a particular duality: that the drawings themselves are very precise, but Bawa still lets us see the imperfections of the human hand. To me it's like a jazz musician bending the notes: making you aware of precision by playing with those rules. I also love works such as these that seem to straddle a line between representationalism and abstraction. These are not abstract works, for it's clear the Coliseum is being depicted. Yet the geometry of the building as imagine by Bawa allows one to become temporarily immersed in the language of the drawing in a way that becomes experiential, and about more than seeing the building that exists across the river in drawing form. Bawa's drawings are greater than the sum of her graphite strokes, just as the Coliseum's architecture is something greater than the sum of its steel and glass: something transcendent.

Bawa's APEX show at PAM runs through February 9. If you love architecture, and love seeing it depicted with a long, deep gaze by an exceptionally talented artist, this show is, well, the apex.

 

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Design calendar: August 16-31

Abraham Lincoln by George Fite Waters, 1928 (Wikimedia Commons)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Portland Green Schools Committee Happy Hour
The mission of the Portland Green Schools Committee is to promote sustainability in school design and operation through advocacy and education of stakeholders about best practices for healthy and productive school facilities. At this introductory event, members will will discuss upcoming committee events and activities, learning and advocacy opportunities around green schools initiatives and the practices, policies and techniques being deployed locally and nationally to improve our school environments. Bridgeport Brewing, 1313 NW Marshall Street. 4:30PM Thursday, August 16. Free.

Emerging Professionals Committee Happy Hour
The Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architect's Emerging Professionals Committee hosts a regular happy hour series focused on how young (and not so young) professionals engage, collaborate, and implement design in different ways. This latest event, slated for the historic Film Exchange Building, will be hosted by three firms: Guggenheim Studio, Fosler Portland Architecture, and Dangermond Keane Architecture. 909 NW Ninth Avenue. 5:30PM Thursday, August 16. Free.

South Park Blocks Walking Tour
This eleven-block portion of the downtown area was first platted and donated to the City of Portland 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. On this Architectural Heritage Center tour one can take a stroll through the groves of elms and recount some of the stories they would love to tell about the area’s history and architecture. The South Park Blocks stand alone as a place of revitalization, refreshment and cultural allure. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 6PM Thursday, August 16. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Design Museum Mornings: Historic Drones
Unmanned aerial systems, better known as drones, have arguably changed the way we see the world.  Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing, first developed drone aircraft in the 1990s to capture meteorological data over the oceans. The company's unique launch and recovery system was originally intended to be used on on boats, which lack the runway space for a typical flight vehicle launch or recovery. This “catch and release” system is also highly effective in remote land environments, like Olympic National Park in Washington, where Insitu drones are used in forest fire monitoring and detection. As part of Design Museum Mornings, an ongoing series from Design Museum Portland featuring short presentations by local thought leaders, an unnamed representative of Insitu will present the company's story. CENTRL Office West End, 1155 SW Morrison Street. 8:30AM Friday, August 17. $10 plus $2.61 service charge (free for Design Museum Portland members).

Historic Albina Tour
Once a separate city from Portland, Albina has a lengthy and diverse history – along with some fascinating architecture. This Architectural Heritage Center tour explores old Albina from stories of early proprietors and its development as a railroad town, to its transformation into the heart of Portland's African-American community and the impacts of urban renewal. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 10AM Saturday, August 18. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Hawthorne Neighborhood Tour
Originally known as U Street and later as Asylum Avenue, today Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard (named for a doctor Hawthorne who headed an asylum on the now namesake street) borders several of Portland’s most popular neighborhoods. This Architectural Heritage Center tour will explore both commercial and residential neighborhoods near Hawthorne in what was once a premier streetcar suburb on the city’s east side. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 10AM Tuesday, August 21. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Portland CSI Annual Golf Tournament
The Portland chapter of the Construction Specifications Institute hosts this annual golf tournament for the architecture, engineering and construction industry, which supports the CSI scholarship program in the process. The CI) is a non-profit association with over 13,000 members in 140 chapters nationwide, dedicated to creating standards and formats to improve construction documents and project delivery. Lewis River Golf Course, 3209 Old Lewis River Road, Woodland, WA. 10AM Thursday, August 23. $400 for a team of four ($100 individuals).

Boise Neighborhood and Mississippi Avenue Tour
The dramatic redevelopment occurring along Mississippi Avenue today is merely the latest chapter in the remarkable and unique history of this neighborhood. From an electric streetcar line to racially discriminatory real estate redlining, this tour explores the cultural and economic changes that have shaped Boise's built environment. Tour-goers will see examples of late-19th century working-class homes  built primarily by Scandinavian, German, and Polish immigrants, not to mention a forgotten dance hall that once housed a temple of the Nation of Islam. 6PM Thursday, August 23. $20 ($12 for AHC Members).

Beaux Arts Portland Tour
This downtown Architectural Heritage Center tour explores the influence of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on Portland architecture of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Attendees will learn how American architects, including some from Portland, attended the school and started a trend in the U.S. emphasizing classical Greek and Roman designs, elaborate ornament, and heavy masonry – all used in a very formal manner. Stops on this tour include several of Portland’s most recognizable historic buildings and preservation success stories. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 10AM Saturday, August 25. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Sellwood Neighborhood Tour (Part II)
Before it was brought within Portland city limits in 1893, Sellwood was an independent, incorporated town. This tour, second in a series from the Architectural Heritage Center, examines an early boom era in the Sellwood neighborhood that occurred from 1900 - 1930. The history of the area is filled with interesting stories, including the development of Oaks Park and the Olmsted parks plan, a one-time horseracing track, the construction of churches and a community center, and the rise of the 13th Avenue business district. The tour takes attendees through a section of the original Sellwood tract where one can see a variety of houses and commercial buildings, some dating back to the town’s earliest days. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 6PM Thursday, July 9. 10AM Saturday, August 25. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

Historic Downtown Milwaukie Walking Tour
Milwaukie, Oregon was settled by pioneers coming west on the Oregon Trail in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The first settlers established lumber and grist mills and later several families established prosperous fruit orchards. Milwaukie and other Willamette River settlements lost out to Portland in the competition to become the major city on the Willamette by the early 1860s. Through most of the 19th century, Milwaukie was a semi-isolated rural enclave that depended on the ferry or rough wagon trails for connection to Portland and other communities. Milwaukie as a community did not grow until the coming of the electrified interurban railway in the 1890s. As this Positively Portland Walking Tour will reveal, the early 21st century has brought more residential growth and the beginnings of downtown re-development, with the downtown home to creative businesses like Dark Horse Comics. The MAX light rail is now spurring more commercial and residential development. Tour begins at Milwaukie City Hall, 10722 SE Main Street. 10AM Saturday, August 25. $15.

King's Hill Historic District Tour
Many of Portland’s most notable late 19th and early 20th century architects designed homes in the hilly King's Hill, a National Register Historic District, featured on this Architectural Heritage Center tour. The neighborhood is also known for its wonderful landscape architecture, serving as a gateway to Washington Park. Tour meets  at the staircase near the entrance to Washington Park on SW Park Place. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 10AM Tuesday, August 28. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

ENGAGE: Be a Community Builder!
The AIA Portland chapter's Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion hosts an evening of networking and conversation with representatives from groups like Girls Inc., the Architecture Foundation of Oregon's Architects in Schools program, and the Living Future Institute's JUST program describing their work, their volunteer needs and how one can help them meet their goals. American Institute of Architeccts Center for Architecture, 403 NW 11th Avenue. 5:30PM Wednesday, August 29. Free.

Pearl District Walking Tour - A Century of Preservation and Change
Over the last 20 years, the Pearl District has been transformed from industrial enclave and rail yards into one of Portland’s most popular residential, cultural and retail districts. A century ago, the area went through a similar transformation, from a working class housing area at the edge of a marsh to the city’s biggest industrial and warehousing area. Many of Portland’s best known architects of the period designed buildings for important local and national companies. Most of these buildings remain, with their exteriors intact, and new uses inside. But as the recent demolition of the Pacific Northwest College of Art's Feldman Building (a renovated old warehouse) reminds us, the current wave of development could threaten more historic buildings. Tour meetup location revealed with ticket purchase. 6PM Thursday, August 30. $20 ($12 for AHC members).

 

 

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A crinkle in time: visiting ZGF's Canopy by Hilton Pearl District

Entrance to Canopy hotel on NW Ninth Avenue (William James Photography)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Although all buildings are basically some variation on four walls and a roof, you never know what part of a design, if any, will stand out and why. Some architecture is successful because it's designed from the inside-out, considering function over form. Other buildings make pretty objects: nice to look at like a piece of sculpture from outside but unremarkable on the inside.

When I first arrived for a tour of the new Canopy by Hilton Pearl District, a 153-room, 10-story hotel on NW Ninth Avenue and Glisan Street in the Pearl District, I wanted to get inside as soon as humanly possible because of the summer heat. The air conditioning thankfully seemed to work despite their leaving the doors open, but in my grenade-pin's-been-pulled haste to escape the outdoor conditions, I initially skipped over what turned out to be my favorite aspect of the design: its facade. Luckily Josh Peacock and Amy Perenchio from ZGF Architects, which designed the exterior of the building, were there to take me on a tour.

The facade alternates strips of floor-to-ceiling glass with panels of aluminum that have been given a custom "print," as it's called, that makes it resemble bronze, with an earthy sheen. Working with a Minnesota-based supplier called Pure + FreeForm to adapt a material process that originated in Japan. The panels are crinkled every seven-eighths of an inch, which creates a subtle pattern of light and shadow on the exterior. That made the product more expensive, so the architects chose a thinner gauge. Since visiting the project, I've compared the panels to Ruffles potato chips and to the filter for my apartment's furnace. Neither comparison is quite right, but the fact that the panels are visually interesting enough to prompt such comparison says something in and of itself. Let's just say the crinkle was worth it.

Canopy facade detail (ZGF Architects)

There is also an interesting pattern to the aluminum and windows, which seems to be part of a kind of architectural conversation with the building across the street. Completed in 2007, the 937 Condominiums by Holst Architecture (with Ankrom Moisan) feature a pattern of differently sized windows set against creamy brick, with the slenderness of the 16-story tower giving the whole package a blend of elegance and kinetics. My understanding is that here too there is a pattern, but 937's windows can appear to be random unless one really concentrates to crack the code.

Canopy's facade pattern appears simpler, but it's still successful as a blend of order and variation. After the concrete base, the second and third floors are one pattern, the fourth through seventh floors another, and so on up to the 10th. Yet even then the aluminum panels are angled slightly differently. I found myself staring at it for quite a while.

937 Condos (Brian Libby)

Inside the hotel, I was surprised how small the lobby and front desk are. There's only one kiosk and the space itself seems not much bigger than a master bedroom. But it's a relatively moot point, because the lobby is really part of one combined larger space with a coffee bar, dining room and sitting area that extends just beyond. Along Glisan Street, the glass walls can be retracted so these spaces open up to the street for an indoor-outdoor feel — something I would have enjoyed if it wasn't 500 degrees that day.

Yet amidst the wide volume of these potentially lively gathering spaces, there is also here a glass-walled quiet area for guests who want to be a bit more removed from the fray. There's also a sunken double-height space in the back. The main portions of the building are L-shaped, but in this back area behind the tower, the design cuts down into what would be a subterranean space and then put skylights over the combined two-story volume.

Overall the interior design seems nice enough, especially as it's augmented by a series of artworks from the Elizabeth Leach Gallery next door, long one of the city's best. Mark Zeff (I just can't bring myself to say or write MARKZEFF more than I have to) employed a variety of area rugs to add warmth and color to the concrete-floored architecture, while the furniture seems like a contemporary spin on midcentury-modern.

The press release describes the interior design as locally inspired, which probably means they think the concrete is a nod to the Pearl's industrial past while the use of wood for a table or chair pays homage to Oregon's forest. It just feels like a corporate hotel to me — simpler a little bit nicer and more upscale one than, say, a Holiday Inn. I read recently that the wave of hotels opened in Portland recently means (as may competition from Airbnb) that per-hotel room occupancy levels are down but that revenue per room is up. This just seems like a corporate brand catering to a slightly more upscale demographic.

Lounge and central dining area (William James Photography)

Personally, I like independent hotels best, but in certain circumstances I'm not unwilling to try a chain when I travel. I very well might recommend a hotel like this to a friend or relative, not only because the ambiance is decent but more to the point because it's a nice Pearl District location that might offer more dining and arts options than staying in certain parts of downtown and certainly more of a real urban feel than staying in the Lloyd District, where several hotels are also located.

Our building tour's last stop was a lovely little penthouse, a glass cube set back from the rest of the facade to allow a small public area. I'm not sure I would have chosen to put a gym there, even though sweating on an elliptical machine with a view of the skyline must be a lot better than staring at a row of TVs at 24 Hour Fitness.

Canopy penthouse and roof deck (Brian Libby)

The inside of this hotel may not have been designed by ZGF, but it's ultimately the architectural moves that I still liked best inside: the disappearing glass wall on the ground floor, the double-height space tucked into the back, and the penthouse. Really when I think of this Canopy in the future, though, I'll think of the facade: its materials, its patterning.

ZGF is such a big firm that their portfolio can vary quite a bit depending which office in which city is doing the designing, or even what group within the Portland office. The last building by this firm that I visited was also in the Pearl, but not one of my favorites: the NV Apartments. There too it's the facade that is the story, but not as successful: a shiny wrapping-paper-like material going up the corners of the tower. On the other hand, I can't wait to see ZGF's recent work at the Nike campus, which looks stunning, or its renovation of the Portland International Airport.

Canopy by Hilton is just one of many new hotels that have come online in recent months or are just about to.

A block away from the hotel I visited was another one: a Hampton Inn & Suites. (But so far not many are in the Pearl.) While downtown I've often passed the new AC Hotel by Marriott and the new Porter hotel, which is yet another Hilton offshoot. Honestly I've found most of these hotels to be pretty boring. It's not to say that they need some showy architectural feature to catch the eye, but most of them feel like unremarkable corporate cookie-cutter buildings.

And unfortunately some of my favorite existing hotels, ones in lovely old downtown buildings—hotels like The Heathman, The Sentinel, Hotel Lucia and Hotel DeLuxe that are part of the Provenance Hotels group—can now be connected with the Trump administration. Earlier this year the CEO of Provenance Hotels, Gordon Sondland, accepted an appointment from the Trump administration to be America's ambassador to the European Union. I've always loved Provenance's properties and the way they restore old buildings, and Sondland himself is respectable. But the move made me question whether I'd want to give the company my business. Honestly I'm not sure what the answer is. Besides, it's rarely black and white. Hilton, which obviously owns the Canopy brand, runs one property called Hilton Grand Vacations Club at Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

In the meantime, back to architecture. Canopy by Hilton in the Pearl won't necessarily blow anyone's mind. It's not about that. To do so would be to create something too showy. Instead, this is a fabric building and a good one at that. Sometimes it's enough just to be handsome and to do some little things well, like an interesting facade and some big naturally-lit interior spaces.

 

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