This week, Paul and Amelia talk with co-hosts Donna and Ken about the fickle pomo debate that is Michael Graves' Portland Building. We're joined by special guest Brian Libby, a freelance architecture journalist based in Portland, who's spent his fair share of time writing, reporting on, and inside the Portland Building.
We also hash out the Guardian's boondoggle on Obama's Presidential Library, and introduce our upcoming coverage on the ACADIA Conference, taking place October 23-25 in Los Angeles, including a conversation with co-chair Alvin Huang.
Listen to episode three of the Archinect Sessions podcast, "Keep Portland Architecture Weird!":
Shownotes
Discussion topics:
Endorsements:
Also mentioned: Tom Kundig loses lawsuit against his Washington valley cabin
Archinect Sessions is a weekly podcast discussing recent news items and happenings on the site. Hosted by Archinect's founder and publisher, Paul Petrunia, alongside Editorial Manager Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, the podcast pulls on the expertise of special weekly co-hosts, whether other Archinectors or players within the architecture community at large.
15 Comments
I'm pretty sure that naked guy is someone I dated when I lived in Portland.
Donna, I noticed your ex forgoes the back fender. Priorities.
He forgoes everything that isn't absolutely necessary. So he's a Modernist, but I bet he loves the Portland Building.
The discussion on The Portland building brought up the question of "saving" buildings based on age. This brings up a number of things including what are the specific criteria for preservation as well as what is the designed life cycle of a building. 30 years for a major building is absurdly poor performance even in light of the tight budget under which this one was built.
And Donna's point about this weird building being an integral part of Portland's identity is excellent.
Miles, "tight" budget is a bit of understatement don't you think? Put all of the issues that created this building aside, what is the role of a city, the electorate, and those elected to projects like this when they work towards creating a work of this magnitude that results in something so shoddily conceived? I think a lot of things led to this, and those same issues resonate even stronger today, when we can't even collectively realize our failings when it comes to responding to climate issues, on our built environment. Perhaps, in hindsight, this building is not "ironic", but a cynical reminder, of how paper thin our aspirations are as a culture? Doesn't this building represent the exact opposite of Vitruvius' three principles of;
And isn't that the problem we have today, in our society?
While I don't know the process that resulted in this building I find it difficult to believe that the citizens of Portland are to blame, or that it is a reflection upon them. If architects weren't so desperate to get any commission maybe they'd tell their clients the truth about ridiculously low budgets.
Some people elected someone to make decisions. We don't get to climb off the hook, just because, we are to blame when apathy follows hope in the ballot box. Not just this building, but the decisions we make as an electorate to be so damned short sighted, especially when it comes to actually paying for things we demand, or need.
This mayor, the one that selected Johnson, to make the selection, also selected budget, or shitty funding, as a top priority, thats what accounted for the design-build; they promised tight control on costs, and probably short the steel reinforcing number, or had bad engineering. You might ask, why are citizens to blame for this? I say look at the time period, remember who was president? Look at all the promises he made to get this country in fiscal shape? How'd that work out for us? Yeah, we're all to blame. We'd rather hear the easy lie, than the hard truth; shit costs, and shitty details cost more, 30 years later.
I want to emphasize the point that ACADIA is not just about working in the computer (doing sexy renders etc) but is broadly including more aspects of our profession, specifically, how technology is impacting industrial work such as fabrication and construction. To me construction and material is both how our work exists at all and where the greatest possibility for poetry exists.
Example: the impact that the invention of the elevator had on architecture. It seems the availability of technology to so many is part of what's blurring the lines around all the design disciplines right now, in a way that leads to better work, for the most part.
Blaming the electorate for the Portland Building is like blaming them for the Iraq War(s), or the Great Recession, or ISIS, or fracking ... there has always been a huge disconnect between the people and their 'elected' officials, and voting has pretty much nothing to do with anything other than perpetuating the illusion that all this shit is our fault because we elected the wrong asshole.
Whatever program the mayor was following, it was still the responsibility of the architect to tell the city that the budget would guarantee the failure of the building. Anyone who puts his work ahead of his personal interest - the very thing professionals are supposed to do - would have told the truth and declined the project.
There is a near-complete disconnect between government and citizens, and to think that this has not been the case for the last couple centuries is delusional. So in that sense, as Gehry the citizen did not make use of his opportunity to correct the budget problem, then Gehry the citizen is responsible. Was it ego (the belief that he could do the impossible) or greed (15% of any budget is better than 15% of no budget), or a combination of the two?
How many times have we compromised (abandoned?) our principles to get work? How many times have we put the our own interests above the client's? This is a shitty profession, and the proof of that is in the built environment.
I loved that Brian Libby spoke about Graves as being very much like all of us: proud of his accomplishments while also being aware of his mistakes, humble on one day and boastful on another. Brian's commentary was so human, in that he was not saying Graves, or any star, is any different from any of us humans: we all have flaws and talents both, that come out in different ways in different circumstances.
The internet definitely aids us in our tendency to turn one another into one-note caricatures.
So Miles I'm refuting your assertion that the Portland Building was either/or: either greed or ego. As I said, and Brian agreed, in the early days of PoMo the sense was one of optimism and earnestness. I believe there was an honest idea that simple finishes but in brighter colors could be employed inexpensively but to great impact, and that this was a new direction to solve problems of unrelatability in architecture. Of course, we have since learned from those experiments that inexpensive pretty much always translates to poor quality. EIFS has taken a well-deserved beating, even though at the time everyone thought it was a great new technology!
Yes, architects have an ethical responsibility to tell our clients if their budget is vastly undercommitted. But we also have to join them if they are enthusiastic about something untested *if* it appears to hold promise - otherwise advancement is never made, in this or any profession.
Brian's comments were excellent, reflecting his deep local knowledge and sensitivity. Mine are hopefully posed more as philosophical, using Portland and Graves as a point of departure.
I don't know what Graves had in mind. Some of us think a project is a stepping stone to something else, or that we can do a better job than the other guy. Some of us just want the dough. A lot of us are somewhere in the middle. These kinds of internal conflicts can overshadow the project itself, which suffers as a result. And when the project suffers so does the client.
Your point about cheap equating to poor quality is not exactly a new concept.
Brian Libby almost convinced me to like the building. Good interview and discussion.
It makes a great lamp.
I agree that this building is a bit wierd and as such gets another vote for why it should be preserved. But I disagree that it gave folks the liscence to do crazy things in Portland or wherever. Modernism gave folks the liscence to do the craziest things like cubism or brutalism or any ism that wasn't historical. The craziest thing the Portland building did was to challenge modernist orthodoxy by doing what modernism had tried so hard to do, which was to stamp out history. Sadly for the most devout modernists, historicism never died becasuse so much of the built environment is developer driven, and they where never indoctrinated in the principles of modernism. It's one of the reason many architects actively promote this two tierd world of architecture where the messyness of the real world can be shunted aside as an adulterated version of a pure art.
Post modernism was a transitory phase that once it fullfilled it's usefulness, died a quiet death. What people like to tag as postmodernism, the strip malls etc. is nothing of the sort. That's just what developers have always done, dress up money making ventures. Like I said in the previous post...
Grave's work gave many the cover to break out of the modernist monopoly, at least intellectually, and explore their personal passions, whether they be the local vernacular, regional styles, or random historical architects they might have admired. Pomo was simply the style that broke the spell. That's why it had to be so 'ironic', to give the establishment a way to digest such heresy."
Once a space was carved out for architects to openly embrace what they do in their home purchases or choice of neighborhood or even vacation destinations, it was off to the races. That's why there are so many excellent traditionalist architects today who would never dare be so cartoonish as the Portland building. As for historical work, what's really ironic is how historical modernism is at this point. Those glass boxes of the 1970's that everyone seemed to agree destroy the sole of a place are still lauded on this site every day. This isnt' to say that people who genuinely love minimalism or modernism are wrong, but simply that there's a wide range of tastes that our schooling dosen't prepare us, which is why 98% of what get's built today does feel like crap. And I don't think this is history repeating itself (bravo modernists!) becasue if you look at a typical old town, try to find the same ratio of greatness to crap there. Take Georgetown or Alexandria in my neck of the woods (DC). Only a LeCorbusier would claim that 98% of those historical buildings where crap, but then again he was full on mental.
Speaking of 98% of academia still holed up in their modernist cloister, there was an optimistic note from Donna that I'd be really curious to hear more about in the future and even help with if possible. The idea of a practice based curriculum. I's amazing that there is even a need for this, but that aside, I would love to see what that would entail. I think I would have benefitted tremendously with that kind of exucation which sadly was not the case when I attended Pratt Institute. Not that I dismiss academia or theoretical ideas, but that in the end, one is usually driven to architecture by the three dimensional reality of the build environment, not becasue they happened to come accross a Nitche or Derrida tome in their sophmore year at high school. I continue to learn and educate myself beyond the daily grind of getting payed for drawng buildlings, but ultimatly, there just aren't enough slots for tenured professors at architecture schools to handle the amount or young architects coming out of school. For the rest of them, this kind of practice based schooling would go a long way to helping young architects to establish themselves in this very difficult economy. Plus, who dosen't love building!
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