Let's Save a Bridge Tower (or Two)

 

(Multnomah County)

Two diminutive, octagonal towers each a mere 11 feet wide rate high among Portland’s best-known landmarks.

Ask almost any Portland resident where the image above is located and the answer likely will be: “Burnside Bridge.”

Two operator’s towers with tile roofs were built on the two heavy bridge piers to provide controls for opening and closing bascules large ships pass.  Both have small staircases; one has a bathroom and the control equipment while the other is used for storage.

Neither will survive when Multnomah County builds its new “earthquake ready” bridge now in the preliminary design stage.  The “new” Burnside will replace the one that opened in 1926.

 There is no need nor space for retaining the historic towers in whatever form the new bridge takes.  Which begs the question: Will they be demolished or can a new use be found for or even both?

The county is well aware of the significance of the towers to the city’s landscape.  However, the budget for the new bridge must be limited to new bridge construction, and not for potential preservation and re-use of the towers somewhere else.

 However, because the bridge and towers are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the county cannot destroy historic fabric them willy-nilly.  Steve Dotterrer, a board member of the Architectural Heritage Center, sits on a committee charged with monitoring what happens to the bridges historic elements, including the towers and balustrades (railings). He said there have been “exploratory” talks with the county, but it is clear that the county budget cannot be used for erecting a tower at a new location.

 Heather Flint Chatto, the AHC’s executive director, said preservationists probably need to figure out a public/private venture that could preserve one of the towers perhaps in Waterfront Park as some sort of kiosk that includes a historic description.

 The towers were designed by the Portland architectural firm of Houghtaling and Dougan.  They may have been added when one of the bridge design engineers criticized Portland for having ugly bridges.  Houghtaling and Dougan also are known for designing the former Washington High School and the classical downtown Portland Elks Lodge that is now part of the Sentinel Hotel.

 While destruction of the operators’ towers is not eminent, it is a good time to start working on a preservation plan.  Given their compact size, it amounts to a “small” but important project.

 -----Fred Leeson

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Can Cleveland High School Be Saved?

 

In coming months, trying to save Grover Cleveland High School from demolition might ripen into a major Portland preservation issue.

 The Portland School Board has approved plans to demolish the 1929-era school and build a replacement on the same site, while Cleveland students would be bussed to the former Marshall High site in the meantime.  The board has already authorized architects to start drawing the plans.

 Trouble is, voters have not yet been asked to approve funding for the Cleveland project.  And the districts own preliminary studies indicate that thoroughly rebuilding the school’s interior with new classrooms and mechanical systems could cost less than a new building.  The refurbishing also would bear fewer environmental consequences than tearing down and building anew.

 The school district also cited a survey of 1413 respondents, 81 percent of whom said they preferred a new building to renovating the old.  Alas, 40 percent of those respondents were students who likely didn’t have any appreciation of the environmental costs of demolition and starting new.  Concern also has been raised about how wording in the questionnaire may have foreordained the answers.

 

So far, no public stances have been taken by the two neighborhood associations directly related to Cleveland.  The school sits in the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood, while the football field four blocks away – “Cleveland Stadium” – lies in Richmond.  Decisions by those associations could have an effect on the anticipated ballot measure for funding or encourage the district to change its mind.

The board of directors of the Architectural Heritage Center, a non-profit organization that strives to protect historic buildings and public places, voted strongly in favor of preserving the historic structure.  The directors said the first priority should be renovating it as a high school; if that fails, the building should be saved for some adaptive reuse, such as a community center or private business.  The directors also noted the added environmental costs of demolition and new construction.

It will take a significant community expression if the building is to be saved in any form.

 The four-acre Cleveland site comprises the 1929 building designed in a Classical Revival style by the district architect of the time, George H. Jones. Subsequent additions of less architectural importance were built adjacent to the original in 1957, 1958 and 1968.  At some point, the multi-paned double-hung windows were removed from classrooms in the 1919 building, but restoring them with comparable new windows could return the historic facades to their original appearance.

 The historic facades are red brick with staggered quoins of glazed terra cotta surrounding multiple doorways and exterior corners.  A historic evaluation performed by the school district in 2007 concluded that Cleveland “retains its integrity of feeling, association, materials, setting and workmanship” reflecting its origins and history.  The study concluded that the building would be eligible to for placement on the National Register of Historic Places.

During a 14-year tenure as the district architect, Jones designed 25 buildings in the era of Portland’s rapid growth.  Many of them – Irvington, Beaumont, Riggler, Duniway and Beaumont to name a few – stand as charming and well-loved monuments in their neighborhoods. 

 The Cleveland project is another step in the district’s plan to improve all Portland high schools for another century.  So far, the district has done comprehensive and tasteful restoration/modernization projects at Roosevelt, Franklin, Grant, Madison and Benson.  The school board opted to tear down Lincoln and build new, and made the same decision at Jefferson, where restoring the much-abused historic building was not supported by the neighborhood.

The good news, then, is that the district might be willing to be flexible.  That’s what preservationists should be asking for at Cleveland, hoping that it leads to a better outcome than demolition.

---Fred Leeson

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The Fountain Dictates the Answer

Ira Keller and fountain designer Angela Danadjieva, 1970

When the Portland City Council sits down to decide on the location of a new Civic Auditorium, one immutable factor should make the decision easy.

 Sitting across the street from the current site is what Architectural Digest calls one of the world’s most “stunning” fountains.  The same one that the nation’s premier architecture critic of the era called “one of the most important urban spaces since the Renaissance.”

 The Ira Keller (nee: Forecourt) Fountain was designed to sit at the Civic Auditorium’s entrance.  It creates a vital, vibrant human space in front of the performance venue, gracing audiences with a spectacular experience both entering and leaving the Auditorium. Very simply, there is nothing that can match it anywhere in Portland – or anywhere else.

For this reason alone, the new Auditorium needs to sit in exactly the same place as the current one.  Building a new auditorium anywhere else would be a massive disservice to the fountain and to its role in the public realm.  The competing site is an old motel once desired by Portland State University that PSU now hopes to unload.

 Architectural Heritage Center directors and other preservation advocates also recommend keeping the current auditorium site.  But there has been little discussion about the value of the fountain and its potential to add greatness to a new auditorium across the street. (Or about consequences if the fountain becomes stranded.) 

The architecture critic who raved about the fountain in 1970 was Ada Louise Huxtable of the New York Times, who won the first-ever Pulitzer Prize for criticism the same year.  While applauding the fountain, she was less enamored with the Auditorium we see today. 

 She called it “a building of unrelieved blandness, sauced with piped-in music at non-performance hours.”  That should be a clue that we can do better – by designing a new auditorium that complements the fountain.  Portland’s best architectural minds should create a building that combines the drama of the fountain with the beauty of the art and music within the auditorium’s walls.

 And here’s another vital factor that must be considered when the City Council makes its decision:  What becomes of the fountain’s environs if the auditorium moves elsewhere?  Could the auditorium block become a parking lot?  Or a high-rise condo?  Imagine how the public would feel if the fountain becomes a “forecourt” for a parking lot, or the private front yard for upscale condo owners? 

Huxtable’s review of the fountain in 1970 touched on the importance of creative, attractive open spaces adding value to historic cities harking back to the Renaissance.   “These spaces have been the human and artistic cores of cities,” she wrote. “The 20th Century has substituted the parking lot.”

 We don’t do Portland a favor by diminishing a valuable asset we already have.  Let’s make the public space even more attractive and desirable with a well-designed new auditorium.

 -----Fred Leeson

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Good News for Veterans Memorial Coliseum

 

One of Portland’s best-known public buildings – beloved by many sports fans -- is on the cusp of a well-planned preservation/restoration project.  The work should add many successful years ahead for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

The 65-year old sports and event arena was upstaged in 1996 by the larger Moda Center located nearby.  Thanks to citizens who vociferously stood for preserving of the VMC when it was threatened with demolition in 2009, the building remains as a remarkable architectural jewel and as a viable venue for sports, concerts and other events.

The $53 million restoration/preservation plan is intended to bring the building up to modern building, electrical and safety codes and to provide more restrooms for women.  Replacement of the 21-inch-wide seats in the arena bowl with wider ones will reduce the building’s total attendance capacity.

The anticipated changes would reduce the 12,000-seat bowl to at most 10,051 for basketball and 9122 for hockey.

Consulting reports finished in 2021 also suggested that the glass facades that inspired the “Glass Palace” nickname might need to be replaced.  The analysis notes, however, “Any new materials that replace the existing must conform to the historic appearance” because the building has been listed as a national historic landmark.

The $53 million budget, composed of regional hotel/motel and rental car taxes, should support work from 2024 to 2026, but it won’t accomplish all the goals set out in the consulting reports.   “Current funding is not adequate to address all of the building’s long term needs and fully unlock its potential, but it will go a long way towards creating a venue that is more accessible, sustainable, reliable, comfortable, and safer,” said Karl Lisle, the city government’s spectator venues program manager.  “In the future, additional funding will need to be secured for additional capital investments.”

 

In its heyday, the Coliseum hosted the NCAA basketball championship in 1965 and the Trailblazers NBA championship game in 1977, as well as providing home ice for the Portland Buckaroos hockey team.  Concerts included Elvis, the Beatles and Johnny Cash, to name a few.

 

Glamor dissipated with the advent of the (Rose Garden) Moda Center.  In 2009, Portland’s mayor suggested tearing down the Coliseum for a baseball site.  A handful of dedicated Coliseum lovers, led by architecture writer Brian Libby, architect Stuart Emmons and the late Gil Frey, a veterans advocate, fought for its preservation, citing – among other issues – its potential value as a venue and its outdoor memorial to veterans killed in action.

 

Years ago, a college professor and architect criticized the building contending that it “lies to you” because the square curtainwall concealed an ovoid seating bowl.  What he missed was the interplay of the geometric shapes when lit at night; and the engineering marvel of four reinforced concrete pillars from which the roof and four walls are suspended.  Designed by the large architecture firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill, the Coliseum is an excellent example of mid-century modern design on a large scale. 

 

When renovations are completed, the Coliseum will remain as an excellent example of simplicity and thoughtfulness combined to create architectural beauty.  The building also will stand as a testament to preservation advocacy when enough caring people generate public and political support to save a valuable resource.

 

----------Fred Leeson

 

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