New Fliedner Building

Chances are you’ve never heard of the New Fliedner Building in downtown Portland, let alone the “old” Fliedner that preceded it.

Yet if you go to SW 10th and Washington and look carefully at the multi-colored five-story building with the unmistakable Zig Zag Moderne detailing, you’ll probably never forget it. Zig Zag Moderne is a category of Art Deco architecture that needs no further definition once you notice all the crosshatches among the purely geometric ramblings.

Kevin Bond, a planner for Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said Zig Zag Moderne is decoration applied to a traditional building, as opposed to Streamline Moderne in which the building itself is "streamlined" with rounded corners as if it were shaped in a wind tunnel.  Bond's comments were part of a presentation to the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission seeking support for the building's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. 

The exterior we see today is a product of the fruitful mind of Richard Sundeleaf, an architect who practiced in Portland from the 1920s to the 1980s, decades when architectural fashions emerged from classical European roots to sleek, glassy modernism.  Sundeleaf’s work spanned both camps.  His best-known works today are probably the Jantzen Knitting Mills building in Northeast Portland and the Children’s Museum housed in what formerly was OMSI near the Oregon Zoo.  Old-timers will remember another Sundeleaf project, the long-gone Jantzen Amusement Park.

An interesting aspect of the “New” Fliedner is that the five-story building originally dates to 1906, and was the home for many years of the Eastern Outfitting Co., a successful clothing and department store for some 60 years.  Its proprietor, Joseph Shemanski, expressed his thanks for his success in Portland by donating the Shemanski Fountain in the South Park Blocks near Salmon Street.

In its original version, the Fliedner was a typical masonry building of the era with a heavy brick exterior.  When Eastern Outfitting outgrew its retail space at the end of the Roaring Twenties, Sundeleaf was hired to revamp the southern and western facades that face Washington and 10th Avenue.  The remodel was completed in 1931. 

What we see today, then,  looks nothing like the original building.  The “New” Fliedner is decked out with flatter but heavily colored and detailed facades with Zig Zag patterns.  There are decorative bands above the first floor and at the cornice; the second floor includes creative posts and lintels surrounding the windows; and the main entry on Washington would fit an Art Deco movie palace. 

Robert Mawson, an architectural history consultant who worked on the National Register application, called “the fabulous exteriors…great work by Sundeleaf.”  He said it is the only building downtown showing  Zig Zag Moderne styling. 

The ground floor of the building always has been used for retailing and the upper floors were used for offices.  The upper floors have been substantially gutted and have been vacant for many years.  Mawson said the new owner, a firm from Bellingham, Wash., intends to restore the upper floors for office use and return the ground floor to retail.

Matthew Roman, a member of the Portland Historical Landmarks Commission that reviewed the National Register application, said Sundeleaf is better known for having designed houses and industrial buildings rather than commercial buildings.  “I’m excited to see this building preserved.  It is a rare and unique instance downtown.”

The landmarks commission will forward the National Register application to a state advisory committee.  If that committee approves, the application will be sent to the National Park Service for final consideration.

In fact, Sundeleaf later performed another architectural magic trick in downtown Portland, just across Washington Street from the New Fliedner.  He added several floors to an older building and turned it into a 1950s glass skyscraper.  That is a story for another day.