For Better or Worse: The Portland Building

Art History 204 Evening Section Fall 2002

Professor Anne McClanan

by Kristin Bell

What is one to make of Michael Graves' Portland Building? Is it really just "'an enlarged jukebox' and an 'oversized beribboned Christmas package' more suited to Las Vegas" than to Portland (Pastier 232)? Is it the first Post—Modern building, and if so, what significance does this carry? Perhaps central to any questions one might ask, has it "been treated as a greater building than it is" (Doubilet 108)? What makes the Portland Building significant, and what does its presence tell us about our culture, our art and our ties to the past? There are widely diverging opinions about the Portland Building, call it some kind of love—hate relationship if you will, but what seems salient about the Portland Building (as is central to other Post—Modern buildings) is that it can be understood as an exercise in "double—coding" as Jencks so aptly put it (What Is Post—Modernism? 29). One is not struck by Classical ideals so that when looking at the Portland Building one says "hey, that looks like Greek ruins" (although Trachtenberg notes that the Portland Building looks like "what a well—traveled child might produce if asked to draw what he recalled from Athens or Rome: a structure made of simple, stepped, toylike blocks and a few oversimplified Classical forms, with the usual scale relationship thrown to the winds" (Trachtenberg 572).), but the Portland Building does engage us in the classical vocabulary. At the same time that the building pays homage to the past, modern building techniques and materials are used and there is a tongue—in—cheek parody of the Classical canon. Not without relevance is the fact that there is a definite break with the Modern building style, if not an outright rejection of the glass cube buildings of Modernism. So, we find ourselves with what might be called a building of "radical schizophrenia" (Jencks 30), and we are left not to wonder if it fits in a dialectic of good versus bad, but rather to wonder within what framework it is best understood.

Perhaps the best place to begin in understanding the Portland Building is with its history. Michael Graves designed the Portland Building in response to a nationally advertised design competition put to architects by the City of Portland in June of 1979 (Olson 35). The City was consolidating its municipal offices and it needed a new office building built for the rock bottom price of $51 per square foot. (In contrast Graves had a budget of "exactly double…for the same square footage" as the Portland Building for his work on the Humana building in Louisville (Doubilet 83).) One of the main reasons that Graves' work was chosen was simply a matter of economics–his was the only design that came in under budget out of the three finalists that were chosen. In addition, he had the support of Philip Johnson, an architect on the board recommending which building should be constructed. He also got the commission "in part because his proposition was supported by some key supporters of the mayor" (Failing 112). Around the time the Portland Building was being designed there had been "two cost overruns on a public works project which had become a cause célèbre–and there was a mayoral race in the balance" (Doubilet 83). This isn't to say that Graves was inept and didn't rightly deserve the commission, but he had never done a work of this size before, and it is difficult to say whether he won because of the design or because of economic concerns.

Even though he was decried by many architects in Portland, work was begun on a revised plan for the Portland Building and Portland soon had its first Post—Modern landmark. This landmark represented a new kind of building in Portland, for it contained ornamentation and historic reference. It ushered in a building style that unseated the Modern glass buildings with their sleek style and cold consideration of the city's citizens. Where Modernism had failed the citizen, Post—Modernism sought to be triumphant (Jencks 29—32). Along these lines Graves included loggias on three sides outside the building that people use to take refuge during rainier days, and it is within these loggias that people are almost sucked up by the building; taken in rather than shunned. I should note, however, that it has also been argued that these loggias do not invite people in, but are dark and obscure the entrance, so people are left feeling that the monumental structure has obliterated any sense of openness that the city wished to instill in the public (Olson 42). Perhaps the building works more theoretically than within the public's sense of reality.

Certainly it is difficult to understand this building without looking to the theoretical aspects of the design which clue us into the historicism used throughout. As stated previously, it is within this historicism that we find the "double—coding" that typifies Post—Modernism. The building refers to the Classic vocabulary, but then it almost makes fun of it at the same time. To illustrate, let me describe some parts of the building. On one of the facades, the building appears to have the beginnings of a triumphal arch, and above this section we find the absurdly proportioned pilasters and keystone which tend to look like an "Atlaslike 'strong man'" (Trachtenberg 573). On a contrasting Modern building we would not find any reference to things like a keystone or pilasters, and on a strictly Classical building we would of course not find such absurd proportions. The keystone is, in fact, almost Mannerist in style, and like its Mannerist counterparts, the Portland Building emits a sense of whimsy.

All whimsy aside, there is something more serious and studied going on with the Portland Building. Perhaps it is the diligent use of trabeation, or the brutality of the building that adds to the Mannerist stylings a seriousness reminiscent of earlier Classical works. The building is solid, not fragile and lace—like like many Gothic buildings that acquiesce their brute force to tracery and intricate details. Graves' use of the four by four windows throughout the building punctuate the structure, but never give it over to frailty. The presence of the wall is always with us, reminding us of its forces.

Then just when the building seems to be too brutal, we run into the bow ornamentation that was intended to welcome the public to the building. Although it may be going quite far to say that the building is nothing more than a Christmas present with a big bow, one has to admit that it is hard to take the entire building too seriously when there are giant ribbons on the facade. It is this constant contradiction that really characterizes this building. Again, Jencks "claims that what distinguishes post—modernism from revivalism is irony, parody, displacement, complexity, eclecticism, realism or any number of contemporary tactics and goals" (Olson 51).

Lest the building not be eclectic enough as is, another Classical element was added–the Portlandia statue over the front door. The use of statuary is a nod to the past where sculptors were often a part of building design (think of the Greek caryatids or statues of Athena for example). The Portlandia statue was actually scrapped at first, because it was thought to be too expensive, but then Portlanders raised the extra money needed for the work. The statue, which represents commerce and more broadly is used as symbol of the city, became one of the points of celebration for the building as Portlanders gathered to welcome the statue to the Portland Building and to the city.

So, while the Portland Building is a "partly Modern building" with its black glass, abstraction, and concrete, what is fundamental is the "pluralist doctrine" (as evidenced by the use of statuary, trabeation, solid forms, references to the past in addition to the Modern elements) which is essential to Post—Modernism (Kings of Infinite Space 90). We cannot understand this building as simply the antithesis of Modernism and neither can it be understood as a non—referential eclecticism devoid of a Classical past. It is important when reading the Portland Building that we consider its historical and cultural framework. It is important to note, for example, the cost that went into making the building. Unlike the Acropolis, which was spared no expense in its building, this building had to live up to at least a remotely similar purpose (the purpose being a civic building) on a tight budget. It is important to take into consideration the amalgam of different building types that surround the building and how the Portland Building reflects and comments on those surrounding buildings (which are both Modern and Classical in style). Perhaps not so insignificantly, we should wonder what kind of statement the City of Portland was making when it chose to undertake this new kind of building form. How daring must a city be to experiment with this type of architecture as it did in the early 1980's! For those progressives among us, it surely should give hope that the city was willing to try something new in order to build a better government for the people.

In the end, whether you love or hate the Portland Building, it is important to realize the lessons it has given us. We learned that the citizens could rally around a piece of art work (as they did to raise the money for Portlandia). We learned that Modernism could be used within the framework of a Classical past. We learned that it is important not to take even the matters of civic work too seriously, and we learned that buildings don't have to be flat, glass cubes as the Modernists would have us believe. Surely the Portland Building has its faults, but within the larger context of artistic exploration it has surely given us something to talk about. In a modern society consumed with matters of economics, power, and the day to day concerns of existence, it should be said that to get a community talking about a piece of art is no small feat in itself. I'd have to go out on a limb and say that we are ultimately the richer for having the eclectic Portland Building standing within our fair city.

Works Cited