A new audit conducted by the city of Portland, Oregon presents an alarming view into the contentious renovations currently being undertaken for the Michael Graves-designed Portland Building.
Among a flurry of critiques aimed at the project organizers, the report states that changes performed to the building's outward material configuration have been so transformative as to effectively nullify the iconic postmodern tower's historical significance.
The report warns: "Despite the importance of historic preservation, there was no minimum requirement identified for this project principle. The project team [only] identified an aspirational goal and anticipated benefit to 'maintain the historic and iconic status of the building.'"
The project, guided by a desire to mitigate water infiltration along the building's concrete facade, will essentially re-skin the 15-story tower with a pressed aluminum rainscreen designed as a rough visual facsimile of the existing design. Preservationists and PoMo lovers have been up in arms over the proposal, which includes controversial changes to the scale and patterning of the facade elements depicted by the rainscreen.
Other changes include switching out the tower's energy crisis-inspired black glass windows and curtainwalls. Those elements are to be replaced with new expanses of clear, blue-hued windows and curtainwalls.
The changes were enough to prompt a warning from the National Parks Service in 2017 as the renovations were undergoing approval. At the time, NPS officials warned the City of Portland that if pursued as planned, the State Historic Preservation Office would likely remove the Portland Building from the state historic and National Historic Registers. The report indicates that that process will soon be underway as "State Historic Preservation Office representatives said they will initiate a delisting process after the Portland Building is almost complete, and the City would be obligated to enter into a mitigation agreement for the adverse effect."
According to the report, Portland will have to pursue local landmark status once the building is delisted from the National Register if it wants to preserve some sort of historical status for the tower.
The weatherproofing- and seismic retrofit-focused plan is led by architects DLR Group and is being funded exclusively with public money. According to the audit, the project's cost has increased by 10 percent, from an initial $195 million to $214 million. This increase is also coming under scrutiny by the auditors. The report charges that "our 2016 audit found that the Office of Management and Finance project team presented Portland Building budgets in a way that made it difficult to trace back to earlier cost estimates and scope commitments, and recommended that the project team present budget information with greater specificity to allow for public transparency."
The report adds, "Starting in December 2016, the project team began excluding some elements from the project scope to stay within its $195 million budget. These exclusions included furnishings, technology equipment, as well as tenant improvements for parts of the building that would otherwise be left unfinished."
Other issues include a faltering commitment to upgrading the building's configuration in order to promote "Universal Design practices.” The report states that of the 800 unaddressed accessibility barriers in the building, an untold number will be left out of compliance, exposing the city to liability from being out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
According to the report,"For example, the City is keeping existing stair structures and will address barriers with the stair rail systems but not horizontal distances or vertical heights of the stairways. The project team did not report this to Council or the Oversight Committee and has yet to request a City exception to the Americans with Disabilities Act or quantify the number of previously inventoried barriers that will exist after renovation. Inspections during construction will be critical to ensure no new barriers are inadvertently constructed."
Construction on the project is well underway and is due to be completed by 2020.
H/T to DoCoMoMo Oregon's Twitter account for highlighting the report.
Incidentally, DLR + Graves' (the firm, not the person, obviously) held a talk on this at the AIA 2019 Conference recently.
Here's a good summary https://portland.designpup.org/what-happened-in-vegas-part-1-the-portland-building/
A lot of what they talked about is relevant in terms of this news.
On a personal note, this is why no one takes Historic Preservation seriously. The decision ignores the substance of what makes the building significant (in the Architects' own words!) in favor of some post-facto insistence on preserving the literal result (which was a failed result, again in the Architects' own words) in amber.
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"Portland Building is no longer historically significant"
Never was, except maybe in a negative sense. Like the Pet Rock.
Don't despair If de Blasio has his way all the glass skyscrapers in NYC will be retrofitted to look like the original Portland Building with the tiny little windows that induce thoughts despair among the occupants so it will live on.
reflective glass destroys hate*
*architecture
i like Graves' works, I think this building is neat, I get that this building has its place in architecture history (thanks Donna!)
but it wasn't built perfectly, and is in no way a work of craftsmanship. what's wrong with changing things around to work better. document and update seems like a much better approach to built history than death by preservation.
btw the rendering is shit. mockups or just don't bother when you're talking about material tweaks. bad pseudophotorealistic renderings confuse everyone.
A more skilled design team could have come up with a replacement cladding solution that more closely matched Graves' design intent. The problem with this project is the owner's and architect's willingness to half-ass this undertaking. The Graves office is still in operation, why the owner decided to not to involve them with the project is ridiculous.
Graves' office was and continues to be involved. Also, iirc Michael Graves himself saw & approved of (personally, not professionally) the concept while he was still alive. I just recently read a thing about this... let me find it.
I stand corrected, it wasn't Graves but his firm interpreting earlier statements to apple to this. Still, I don't think he'd be upset about this renovation.
A more skilled design team could have come up with a better original design.
The notion of preserving a facade that leaked is an example of what is wrong with historic preservation. People change, things change. Make it better (stop the "water infiltration", improve energy efficiency, etc.), acknowledge / respect the original, but get on with life. It was a novelty building to begin with: we aren't talking about the Pantheon or something here.
Why worry about preserving something that is a prime example of misguided architectural theory inflicted on its occupants and the public at large? If the building was meant for the ages, it should have been built that way. It was always more about its own image than its physicality, so let it slip into history.
Bingo!
Incidentally, DLR + Graves' (the firm, not the person, obviously) held a talk on this at the AIA 2019 Conference recently.
Here's a good summary https://portland.designpup.org/what-happened-in-vegas-part-1-the-portland-building/
A lot of what they talked about is relevant in terms of this news.
On a personal note, this is why no one takes Historic Preservation seriously. The decision ignores the substance of what makes the building significant (in the Architects' own words!) in favor of some post-facto insistence on preserving the literal result (which was a failed result, again in the Architects' own words) in amber.
this was a good link! it's a problem that preservationists aren't talking to practicing architects and understanding what we actually see as the 'artistic value' in our work. it's normal that the built product is only 80% faithful to the vision, sometimes much less. no reason to worship the mistakes.
I think the new version looks gorgeous. And I say that as a huge fan of the original, both conceptually and based on first-hand daily streetscape experience of it.
Not a huge fan of big fat buildings that aren't sustainable, but here's an arguably better one of his buildings I saw last week in Louisville.
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