Ground-floor lobby at Multnomah County Central Courthouse (Brian Libby)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
In autumn of 2020, the new Multnomah County Central Courthouse completed construction. Normally that's when I and other press would have visited. But 2020 was no ordinary year, so it was only a few weeks ago—nine months after the opening and only as people got vaccinated—that any of us without immediate court business have been able to go inside. And because the courthouse has been encircled with protective plywood boards since last summer's protests, even as it's become totally open it hasn't looked that way.
Thankfully there were two really memorable architectural experiences awaiting inside this new courthouse by SRG Partnership: the soaring little lobby, and the views from its upper floors.
There's actually something to be said for living with a building like this for a while—seeing its presence on the skyline—before forming an opinion about its design. And with its prominent place in the front row of Portland's downtown skyline along the Willamette River, the MCCC is hard to miss. That's especially true for me living just off Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. It's the first building I pass after crossing the Hawthorne Bridge into downtown.
As it overlooks both the bridge and Tom McCall Waterfront Park, there's nothing to obstruct a view of the courthouse's east-facing facade. Which, as it happens, is the back of the building. But without question, as it faces the waterfront, the building has a striking presence.
Façade
Even if it weren't so prominently sited, I think the building's asymmetrical limestone and glass façade patterning would still cause it to stand out against most other nearby downtown buildings on the skyline: nearly all of which, the courthouse makes you realize, are all uniformly symmetrical and, in most cases, pretty banal.
When I interviewed SRG Partnership's Steve Simpson about the Multnomah County Central Courthouse design in the spring of 2016, the architect cited three previous buildings as influences: the neoclassical US Supreme Court building from 1935, designed by architect Cass Gilbert; the more contemporary styled Lindsey-Flanagan courthouse in Denver, completed in 2010 and designed by SRG's Multnomah County Central Courthouse partner, CGL Ricci Greene; and the great Rafael Moneo’s Murcia City Hall in Spain, opened in 1998.
The courthouse as seen along the riverfront (Motoya Nakamura, Multnomah County)
“The US Supreme Court has a strength to it," said Simpson, who has since departed SRG. "It evokes this order, permanence and strength. And the Lindsey-Flanagan courthouse in Denver, it’s very transparent,” he explained. “Can we take the best of these attributes and invest them into how this east façade is made? The thing that gives the Supreme Court its power is its columns, its exposed structure. We’re looking at doing that on the east façade of the new building, to give it that sense of order."
"But we also feel the building should have a lyrical quality as well. It is a public building," Simpson added. "We feel as though the elevation needs to have that vitality. You can see the figurines in the pediment of the Supreme Court that remind us it’s a public building. And in a more abstract way the Murcia City Hall in Spain by Rafael Moneo. The random patterning gives it that lyrical quality. It’s random but it has order to it. We feel like the eyes should move around it. I think it will be compelling. That’s more evocative of the human condition: diversity, complexity, and it’s ever changing. Those two superimposed on each other is what we’re after."
He also explained the use of limestone. “It’s for that sense of permanence, but it’s also light,” Simpson said. “I think some of the best buildings in Portland have a real light quality to them. It’s overcast nine months out of the year. But also this sense of transparency: modern buildings should reveal the activity inside them, especially courthouses, because of that sense of transparency and justice.”
If you're the kind of person who reads a lot of design press, this asymmetrical façade look has been around for a while. Moneo's building is 23 years old. And I think of local buildings like the 937 condominium building by Holst Architecture, in the Pearl District, completed in 2008. So it's an odd sensation, but the look of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse exterior is to me both fresh and stale. Or rather, it's fresh compared to the buildings around it, but maybe a bit derivative in the broader context.
But what I think saves the exterior facade, as it faces the river, is that it's executed with clarity. It's just the limestone and the glass: a simple, elegant composition. I can't say for sure, but I think despite the very millennial style of the patterning, the building may indeed be simple enough to remain timeless.
Lobby staircase leading to jury duty, etc. (Brian Libby)
Entry and Lobby
When I wrote about this building for a recent Portland Tribune column, the first thing I mentioned was that the building's improved functionality becomes apparent before one even enters the building. Instead of waiting outside on the sidewalk in a long security line stretching from inside, accommodation was made inside the lobby of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse for an airport-style snaking-line path that will keep people out of the elements when it's busy.
Once through the security scanners, the lobby is arguably the best part of the whole building. It's a multi-story volume made possible by tall, relatively thin board-formed concrete columns and an upward sloping wood-clad ceiling that forms a canopy outside, and accentuated with a huge work of colorful glass art by Lynn Basa.
Those columns I found gorgeous. Tall and slender yet with a cool trapezoidal shape, they felt almost like a contemporary nod to Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Johnson Wax Building. The combination of concrete columns and wood ceiling, especially amidst the multi-story volume of the lobby, also faintly recalled to me the great Louis Kahn. Only in the work of those masters, that DNA carries through to the entire building. Here the lobby feels a bit different from the rest.
Concrete, wood and glass, inside and outside the MCCC lobby (Brian Libby)
I guess this lobby is really SRG Partnership's moment to shine. The venerable Portland firm (for which, in full disclosure, I have done some freelance work in the past), though offering a broad portfolio with decades of public experience, won this commission somewhat against the odds, given that some other large, prestigious local firms were competing for the commission, as were internationally-renowned architects and firms like Rem Koolhaas and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, both of which applied for the job. But SRG is on a roll, with two very prominent projects—this courthouse and the reconstructed Hayward Field in Eugene, at the University of Oregon—coming into use and getting plenty of attention this year, in coming-out parties delayed by the pandemic. Hayward in particular looks to be an instant landmark.
Just as Hayward's huge wood columns look striking, the Multnomah County Central lobby is so wonderful that it inevitably makes me wish it weren't just on one corner of the ground floor. Not only is the square footage relatively small, but the lobby faces the northwest side of the building, on SW First Avenue, essentially turning away from the river. Why not extend that lobby across the whole northern side of the building, allowing it to acknowledge and take in the Hawthorne Bridge and the Willamette?
My understanding is that Multnomah County was committed to keeping a holding cell on the ground floor, which necessitated a smaller lobby. I'm sure that's the most convenient thing for the client, and an architect has to respect the client's wishes and functional requirements. Even so, could they really not have budged? Were they really that stymied or unnerved by the task of moving prisoners up or down a floor? And could a bigger firm with more courthouse experiences like, say, SOM, have had more success in convincing the client to bend?
Relegating the lobby to one corner for this particular programmatic reason seems to say something symbolic: that open public space is at odds with and at times even overridden by security concerns. I can't help but think of Simpson's own words: "modern buildings should reveal the activity inside them, especially courthouses, because of that sense of transparency and justice." It makes me wonder: what if instead of moving the holding cell up or down a floor, they just made the walls between them and the lobby transparent? I suppose it would have violated prisoners' privacy or made those in uniform uneasy, being on display. But especially in recent times, added transparency might prove to be useful.
And let's not get carried away here, because the building seems to function and flow well enough that perhaps I'm overstating the importance of the lobby only occupying one corner. After all, the reason those lines were so long at the entrance to the old Multnomah County Courthouse was largely because of people coming and going for jury duty. And now, not only will jurors not have to line up outside to enter the courthouse, but once through security they'll pass up a two-story staircase leading to a vastly improved juror waiting area on the third floor that even offers something the lobby doesn't: views of the river. With an in-house cafe, waiting in the jury room becomes a little less of a confining chore and something to at least partially enjoy. I could easily stare out at that view all day. The stairway SRG does a good job of making a presence unto itself. But I still wonder if the ideal would have been to keep jurors on the ground floor.
Jefferson Station and (the) Niles Crane
Although the Multnomah County Central Courthouse is principally a new, L-shaped building, the project also retained the historic Jefferson Station building that's long occupied the southwest corner of the block. Dating to 1909, this former Portland General Electric substation now houses high-volume courts instead of high-voltage equipment. A massive crane inside was left in place, as was the original brick interior cladding, making this a handsome preservation win.
The crane, it's worth mentioning as a kind of pop-cultural aside, made me do a double-take. Affixed to this massive piece of steel just below the ceiling is a large painted label: 20 TON NILES CRANE. As many of you certainly already know, Niles Crane happened to be the name of a character on 1990s sitcom Frasier. As soon as I saw the label on the crane, I wondered if the TV character played by David Hyde Pierce had been named by the show's writers after this piece of industrial infrastructure, as some kind of obscure building-industry inside joke.
Jefferson Station and its ceiling crane (Brian Libby)
I'm really glad Jefferson Station was preserved. Inside, it's full of light and the brick gives it the best material ambiance in the entire building (or at least second only to that glorious wood lobby ceiling and the board-formed concrete columns). I've wrestled a bit, however, with how I think the two buildings fit together, or if they really do.
I guess, if you'll pardon the pun, the jury is still out on this one. I need to experience the old and new structures more than once to say for sure. But I guess what nags me is that an L-shaped building in some ways does not feel ideal, and so the tall new building that wraps around Jefferson Station pays a certain price for Jefferson Station's existence, especially when the two don't seem to have much of any overlap. At least on my first visit, they felt like two distinct things.
I think of the joy of visiting certain buildings that truly seemed to combine new and old architecture, like the King's Cross and Liverpool Street rail stations in London (the foreign city I've visited more than any other): how the texture of the old architecture made the new architecture better. Here, the old and new don't seem to embrace each other at all but instead are like friendly step-siblings.
What's more, what I experienced of the Jefferson Station building—those high-volume courts—was on the second floor. The first floor of that building, too, is part of a mostly closed-off first floor, a kind of shadow space at the base of the building, that the dramatic-yet-small lobby helps distract from.
Of course the Multnomah County Central Courthouse arrives in a time when its sister building a block away, the Multnomah County Justice Center, has for much of the past year and a half been the target of protests. Last summer, in the wake of George Floyd's murder, those protesters numbered in the thousands. This new building is for courts, not jails, but the fact that so much of the ground floor seems to have apparently been designated for handling prisoners, some of the DNA of the Justice Center seems to have been grafted to this Central Courthouse building.
The Courtrooms and Views
I can't talk about this new building without talking a little more about the breathtaking views of the Willamette River and the east side (and beyond) from its courtroom lobbies stacked along the east facade.
Visiting the courthouse and stopping on several different floors to both take in the view out and see different courtrooms, I was reminded of visiting the Mark Hatfield United States Courthouse back when it opened in 1997. At the time, I had just moved back to Oregon and was living in Portland for the first time. One evening there was an open-house at the courthouse (this was pre-9/11), and the public was invited to come inside. Looking out from the Hatfield's upper floors, the view of our new city was such a delight.
Views north and east from the MCCC (Brian Libby)
I got much of that same sensation looking out from the Multnomah County Central Courthouse a few weeks ago. I was even luckier on this private tour, because I got to go all the way to the rooftop, where the building's photovoltaic panels were a sight unto themselves and the view was 360 degrees. But even from just the ordinary public lobbies in front of each courtroom, it feels like one of the best and most panoramic views that have ever been available in Portland.
Perhaps because of the new building's L shape, the elevator core is not in the middle of the structure, where you'd find it in most downtown buildings. Instead, it's place along the north wall. On the ground floor it's adjacent to the lobby, while on the upper floors it basically forms the end of the L, so that you walk east, around the corner, to reach the courtroom lobbies, taking in views to the north and east in those few dozen steps. That leaves the entire floor plate on the eastern side available to stack courtrooms.
Because this building is bigger than all other waterfront structures, I particularly enjoyed the unobstructed view north, taking in Mt. Saint Helens as well as the river's bend at the Burnside Bridge, and many downtown buildings like the US Bancorp tower (Big Pink). But of course Mt. Hood to the east is really always the star attraction. It's our Mt. Fuji.
Rooftop solar panels and Mt. Hood (Brian Libby)
One substantial difference between the Multnomah County Central Courthouse and the Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, though, is that the county was working with a more modest per-square-foot budget. The Hatfield, with a design lead by New York's Kohn Pedersen Fox in collaboration with local firm Bora as architect of record, has been called opulent for its comparatively lavish budget. It also was built at the beginning of the federal government's Design Excellence program, which awarded commissions to many of the nation's top architects in the years ahead. There was clear ambition in every way.
Multnomah County is not the federal government. This client had more modest aims: hire a local firm, deliver a better-functioning courthouse on time and on budget. Opulence would risk backlash against proper use of public funds, and a starchitect might be hard to control.
It's not to say the new Central Courthouse is bare-bones. As mentioned, the lobby is great. And the courtrooms themselves, stacked on each upper floor, offer with clerestory windows bringing in natural light and almost concert-hall-level interior acoustics that make it easy to hear someone across the room (a witness, for example). It's just not quite the same level of high-budget detail and materials you'd find at the Hatfield. That's not a criticism, though. And SRG's team of designers seems to have stretched that budget smartly. Maybe I was a bit surprised at the amount of plain white drywall I saw inside the courthouse, but always in conjunction with other materials.
Upstairs courtrooms (Motoya Nakamura, Multnomah County)
Overall, I find this a county courthouse to be one with moments where light, materials, volume and transparency come together to wonderful effect. Other times it seems a bit more utilitarian: a series of hallways and closed rooms next to a wall and a half of glass. I also think it's worth mentioning that the courthouse Multnomah County vacated is being restored into private-sector offices, because had that building been demolished, I would have, however unfairly, held this new building and its benefactor partially responsible. And, of course, I'll always wonder what SOM and OMA might have done. All that said, after visiting the Multnomah County Central Courthouse, my sense is of a job well done and a building that is poised to endure.
The courthouse is a reminder of the old curse may you live in interesting times. It was conceived in 2015 and early 2016, with SRG's first renderings released that spring. It was under construction during the Trump administration and then finished just as the pandemic and protests were at their zenith, millions of forest acreage burned and the air outside wasn't safe to breath. Now, it begins life in a new era, where for a time the skies are figuratively and literally clearer, but perhaps not for long. In all these times, we need justice: a series of principles that, at least in pre-2016 theory, don't bend. "The first duty of society is justice," wrote Alexander Hamilton.
And we need architecture that best represents and serves that process. Even the best building can't make up for human failures and tragedies, be it from civilians or within the government itself. Much as I love old buildings like the old Multnomah County Courthouse, that was a building with ghosts, just as the Multnomah County Justice Center has become. It's a fair argument that we could have spent the money for a new courthouse on, say, affordable housing. Even so, I like the idea of Portland's home county leaving those ghosts behind, and starting a new chapter in this courthouse.
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I sat for jury duty a few months ago. COVID meant the cafe and amenities were closed, and we waited outside, rather then in the security line. Plywood hoardings were up, presumably related to fortify and protect against protest related damage.
The grand staircase was nice, beckoning us up a reasonable number of stairs. The east wall of the courtroom levels had such amazing views that every juror stopped and admired those views to the east.
Posted by: ted | July 05, 2021 at 11:33 AM
FYI, your last photo is not on a courtroom floor, that corridor is much narrower, maybe level 5 or 6?
Nice review!
Posted by: David | July 08, 2021 at 09:04 AM
Nice swap on the corridor photo! Thanks!
For my second act, Id like to give a shout out to Studio Petretti for their work on Jefferson Station
Posted by: David | July 09, 2021 at 07:47 PM