The Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, in North Portland, saw its congregation swell in the wake of the 1948 Vanport flood, which displaced Oregon’s largest African-American community in a matter of hours. This led to a significant alteration of the church building, and it’s still noticeable today.

Such history will soon be documented by the Architectural Heritage Center, thanks to a $12,000 grant from the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office. documenting early history of African-Americans in Portland, and cover structures ranging from the stately Vancouver Avenue church to houses that formerly housed working-class families.

“With a project like this it was really important that we get it right,” said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, historic resources manager for the city. “In this case, getting it right means bringing on people who have a connection to the population that we’re trying to better document and understand.”

The grant was awarded by the city of Portland. The AHC was chosen over five other bidders – mainly Portland-area preservation consultants. Its research program is expected to ultimately result in an application to list Portland’s varied African-American cultural sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Combining multiple sites into one historic district is done through a Multiple Property Documentation process, which is said to be more involved than the one to list an individual site.

AHC distinguished itself via its deep connections to Portland’s African-American community, according to Spencer-Hartle.

“What stood out about AHC’s bid, and the reason why ultimately they were selected,” he said, “is that they’ve got a lengthy history of not just documentation of buildings, but direct involvement with property owners and renters and businesses in North and Northeast Portland that have long-standing associations with the African-American community.”

Along with technical writing and research, the project’s scope includes a heavy public engagement component. The AHC’s first community meeting for this project is scheduled for May 20, at 10 a.m., at the Vancouver Avenue First Baptist Church, at 3138 N. Vancouver Ave. Attendees are asked to bring photographs, oral histories or other materials detailing what life was like in Portland in its first 75 years. These could include present owners or occupants of properties formerly occupied by African-Americans decades ago, Spencer-Hartle said.

Many of the key properties are expected to be in North and Northeast Portland, where many of the city’s African-American residents took root. Others could be located elsewhere, and help tell stories of displacement as a result of unfair mortgage lending practices or other racism.

Additional meetings will take place later this summer, depending on the outcome of the first one.

The AHC is expected to deliver around August a completed nomination for a federal Multiple Property designation containing a wealth of relevant contextual history. It should come in a form compatible with the U.S. Forest Service’s best practices for documenting historic resources. Plus, the AHC is being asked to present the information in a way that hasn’t been done before.

If the designation is awarded, that opens the door for individual property owners to designate their individual buildings.

Previous efforts by historic preservationists often weren’t oriented toward telling the stories of African-Americans, Spencer-Hartle said.

Spencer-Hartle, a former Restore Oregon staffer, said the city has studied similar documentation efforts in Los Angeles and Wichita, Kansas.

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Height, and where tall buildings would detract from neighborhoods, dominated the initial public hearing for the proposed draft of Portland’s Central City 2035 Plan.

Goose Hollow and West End residents came out in force on Tuesday to a meeting of the Planning and Sustainability Commission to oppose proposed maximum building heights of up to 460 feet on some parcels. The Goose Hollow Foothills League has been a vocal advocate for preserving views of Mount Hood from the historic neighborhood.

“Excessive heights cause an excessive incentive to tear down rather than preserve,” said Richard Rahm, a West End resident.

Developers and some affordable-housing advocates have been pushing for taller buildings to provide more housing and greater return on investments. That has caused consternation throughout Portland, and the West End and Goose Hollow have emerged as particular hot spots for the debate.

Sherry Salomon, a Goose Hollow resident, said allowing buildings up to 325 feet “threatens the character of our neighborhood.” It puts at risk historic Goose Hollow buildings such as the Concordia Club, a historic Jewish social club, she said.

Fred Leeson, president of the Architectural Heritage Center‘s board, lamented that the neighborhood’s views of Mount Hood haven’t been the same since construction of the KOIN Tower in 1983.

“We seem to be in such a rush to be a huge city just like any other American city,” he said.

Walt Weyler, a West End resident and an Oregon Symphony Association board member, said the city should not allow construction of large multifamily buildings without additional parking.

“Parking is needed for arts performances,” he said.

The city has moved away from minimum parking requirements, instead investing in public transit.

Some speakers advocated for greater heights. Allison Reynolds, a lawyer representing Unico Properties, owner of the U.S. Bancorp Tower, said the code should allow for unlimited height at the site of the skyscraper better known as Big Pink.

The building, along with the KOIN Tower and the Wells Fargo Center, predates and exceeds downtown’s 460-foot height limit. As a result, the towers are considered nonconforming uses, which could complicate refinancing, transactions or rebuilding after a disaster, Reynolds said.

Reynolds added that the buildings’ owners would be amenable to limiting the allowable height on those properties to the towers’ current heights, but she said there are some discrepancies in how skyscrapers’ heights are measured.

Portland State University officials also argued in favor of increasing allowable building sizes along the transit mall and MAX orange line tracks.

Several speakers decried a zoning code requirement that buildings and additions should meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold standards from the U.S. Green Building Council.

“There is an issue with mandating one single green building program,” said Caitlin Horsley, sustainability and education manager for the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland.

Some speakers said they want the option to use a competing certification: Green Globes from the Green Building Initiative.

Audrey Craig Gnich, with Portland Forward, cautioned against doing away with a floor-to-area ratio for providing day care facilities in the Central City.

“We’ll be left with a zoning code that does almost nothing to support families and family-sized developments in the Central City,” she said.

The Planning and Sustainability Commission will hold a second public hearing on the Central City 2035 Plan on Aug. 9 at 5:30 p.m. in the Portland Building. Attendees can sign up to testify beginning at 3:30 p.m. in Room C of the Portland Building and then return near the start of the meeting.

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Under current Portland city code, owners can remove a property from the Historic Resources Inventory (HRI) and immediately apply for a demolition permit. In other words, Portland has no way to protect its historic structures.

City officials are aware of the loophole allowing building owners to circumvent a 120-day notification period for demolitions, said Brandon Spencer-Hartle, the historic resources program manager for the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. But any potential change would not be fast-tracked, he added.

Spencer-Hartle noted that this week he was in staff meetings where closure of the loophole was discussed. But BPS is tackling other planning issues that take precedence, he said, and any change to city code must first go through a public process.

At the earliest, Spencer-Hartle said, a proposal to fix the loophole could be ready for review by BPS staffers by late summer and then considered by the Portland City Council by this fall.

“One of my misconceptions before coming to work for the city was that the City Council could just whip up a code,” Spencer-Hartle said. “But even working to see how fast we can put this together, that timeline is most ambitious. It could be faster or it could be slower.”

It’s too slow for Peggy Moretti, executive director of Restore Oregon, which works to protect the state’s historic structures. One that could be at risk is a former firehouse at 1425 N.W. Glisan St. The building is listed on the HRI, but it could be removed by a prospective new owner and then demolished.

“The city has committed to closing the loophole, but it’s taking too dang long,” Moretti said. “In the meantime, other things (besides the firehouse) will be removed.”

In 2002, when the city changed many of its codes, it deleted a 120-day waiting period before demolition of a historic structure could occur, Spencer-Hartle said. That might have been an accidental oversight, he said.

“There is no evidence there was an intention to allow (historic) properties to be removed without delay,” he said.

The 103-year-old ex-firehouse in the Pearl District can be removed from the HRI at any time, Spencer-Hartle said, because of a state law passed by the 1995 Oregon Legislature. It requires owners to give permission for buildings to be added to historic registers, undercutting cities’ ability to identify and preserve historic structures. Oregon is the only U.S. state with such a law, according to Moretti.

Portland’s HRI has not been updated since 1985, and there are no plans to pursue an update because the state law requiring owners’ permission would make it an all but impossible task, Spencer-Hartle said.

The city cannot take a political stand on the issue, he added, because it is state law.

As things stand now, Spencer-Hartle said, if the owner of a building requests a demolition permit before asking for its removal from the HRI, the 120-day delay would go into effect. But if the request for a demolition permit is made after removal from the HRI, there would be no delay.

Only listing on the National Register of Historic Places can prevent demolition. But even if a building is listed on the national register, the owner can push the Portland City Council to allow demolition, said Val Ballestrem, education director at the Architectural Heritage Center.

“We are really hamstrung with preservation of buildings or saving buildings from demolition,” he said. “Owners make more money by redeveloping and we are essentially seeing really historic and architecturally significant buildings torn down.”

AHC board Vice President Steve Dotterrer is heading an advocacy committee that will push for changes to state law regarding the owners’ permission requirement for buildings’ historic designations, Ballestrem said. But it won’t be an easy sell, he added.

“It’s really interesting how Portland is a super liberal city and yet when it comes to property, people say, ‘It’s my property and you can’t tell me what to do,’ ” he said. “We’ve become just as libertarian as anyone else in the state.”

No application for a demolition permit has been submitted for the ex-firehouse, Spencer-Hartle said. But that could change any day, he added.

Sam Rodriguez is a senior managing director of Mill Creek Residential Trust, the potential new owner of the ex-firehouse. The firm has entered into a contract with the current property owner, but the sale isn’t finalized yet, he said; redevelopment plans aren’t set yet either.

Due diligence is still being performed, Rodriguez said, but he expects the sale to be finalized in two to three months.

“We’re evaluating all the options and one of them is demolition of the building,” he said. “That’s very likely, but we don’t really have final plans at this point.”

The property remains on the HRI, but can be removed after the sale is final, Rodriguez said.

“The list was done a long time ago and doesn’t protect it from demolitions,” he said.

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Architectural researchers Jim Heuer and Robert Mercer on Saturday morning at the Architectural Heritage Center will deliver an updated lecture: “Hidden Brilliance: The Residential Architecture of Joseph Jacobberger.”

Jacobberger designed homes in many styles, including American Craftsman, English Cottage and Jacobean, “foretelling the Northwest style later practiced by Pietro Belluschi and others,” according to the AHC website.

Jacobberger’s designs “bridge the classical era of the late 19th century through early modernism,” Heuer said. He and Mercer pored over hundreds of Jacobberger’s designs and took digital photos of the front elevations and details of about 260 homes, yielding about 675 digital images.

Val Ballestrem, education manager at the Architectural Heritage Center, agrees that Jacobberger was “one of the most significant” early 20th century architects in Portland.

“Nobody worked in a vacuum back then, and people were aware of the work of others,” he said. “Certainly what Jacobberger did was easily influential just as Belluschi’s was later and then A.E. Doyle’s.”

The difference, Ballestrem said, was that while Jacobberger and some other influential architects stayed in the Portland area, Belluschi and others took on work in places such as Boston and New York. Like some other notable Portland architects, Jacobberger had more influence regionally than nationally because he didn’t receive as much exposure.

“He was not as well-known, but the quality of his work was fantastic,” Ballestrem said.

Jacobberger has been known mostly for his designs for the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland, including the original design of St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception at 1715 N.W. Couch St.; it was completed in 1926.

Jacobberger was a devout Catholic and became the Portland diocese’s de facto architect, designing many buildings for the archdiocese but also homes for many of its parishioners.

Saturday’s presentation at the AHC will also include new photos of the exterior and interior of the home that Jacobberger designed for his own family at 1502 S.W. Upper Hall St., Mercer said.

The presentation is scheduled for 10 a.m. More details are available at .

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Extensive research by two local architectural enthusiasts is shining a spotlight on some influential early Portland architects.

Robert Mercer, assistant dean at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Portland State University, and Jim Heuer, chief technology officer at Evos Logistics, met in Portland and have been a couple for 27 years. Their love of architectural history has evolved over time.

Mercer grew up in Northeast Portland and said he loved going with his mother to shop at the Lloyd Center because of the old houses they’d pass along the way.

“It was just one of those lifelong things that I was fascinated with old houses, and Jim experienced the same thing growing up in Illinois,” Mercer said. “We never did much about it, but if we’d go somewhere, we’d take old house tours.”

Heuer and Mercer started conducting serious architectural research about 16 years ago, when they bought their house and learned that it was designed by architect Emil Schacht in the early 1900s. That led to the couple giving a presentation on Schacht’s work for the Architectural Heritage Center about 10 years ago. He was known for American Craftsman-style designs, particularly in the Willamette Heights neighborhood.

“He came to town in about 1885 or ’86 and died in 1927,” Heuer said. “He did hundreds of projects, was very creative and introduced arts and crafts and craftsman styles to Portland.”

Then in 2008 Heuer and Mercer delivered a presentation on the work of architect Joseph Jacobberger. On Saturday will give an updated version of that lecture, “Hidden Brilliance: The Residential Architecture of Joseph Jacobberger,” at the Architectural Heritage Center.

Heuer and Mercer spent many months researching Schacht, scouring old newspaper archives and researching the details of all of the houses – approximately 100 – he designed. Next they tracked down the homes’ current owners and invited them to a party spotlighting the homes’ history. To the couple’s surprise, people representing 70 of the homes showed up.

“We are strong believers that if you know the history of your house and community, it enriches your life and sense of belonging,” Mercer said.

The couple spent three years tracking down details about Jacobberger’s designs for private homes in Portland. They started by spending a week at the University of Oregon‘s Knight Library taking digital photos of hundreds of his designs. Then they visited the physical locations of more than 100 surviving houses and took more pictures.

“Jim is really an architectural photographer,” Mercer said.

But Heuer and Mercer didn’t stop there. Next they wrote letters and even knocked on the owners’ doors to ask if they could take interior photos.

“Amazingly, a great many people said, ‘That’s cool; come on in,’ ” Mercer said.

Their research yielded voluminous information on Jacobberger’s career, which Heuer and Mercer distilled into a 125-page presentation and 22 pages of detailed listings of all the houses he designed.

Architect Bill Hawkins, author of “100 Years of Great Portland Houses,” said the research performed by Heuer and Mercer is indispensable in bringing the work of architects like Jacobberger and Schacht to the forefront.

“It’s astounding how much work they put into it,” Hawkins said. “They used their wonderful talents in bringing up very important architects who had big practices but are just not known today.”

Heuer and Mercer also researched and presented at the AHC a program on architect Alfred Faber, who moved to Portland from Philadelphia in 1904 and was one of the first to popularize the bungalow style in the Northwest.

The couple has chosen to research architects working from the late 1890s to World War I, Mercer said, because it was a time when the middle class had money to build homes and hire architects to design them.

“Portland was the fastest-growing city in the country in 1910,” he said. “It grew 130 percent between 1900 and 1910 and doubled again between 1910 and 1920.”

Val Ballestrem, education manager at the Architectural Heritage Center, said it’s indebted to Heuer and Mercer for contributing to its efforts to preserve Portland’s architectural history and for uncovering information on early prominent architects.

People tend to remember only famous Portland architects like John Yeon, A.E. Doyle or Pietro Belluschi, Ballestrem said. Others “had fallen under the radar and had been forgotten,” but undeservedly so, he said.

“They had prolific and lengthy careers locally and did work that has lasted,” he said. “That’s what architecture is all about.”

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When Eric Wheeler conducts an architectural walking tour in one of Portland’s historic neighborhoods, he doesn’t just talk about style and time periods; he talks about how history has shaped the past, present and future.

Wheeler, who moved here about three years ago, offers about 50 different architectural and historical walking tours through Positively Portland Walking Tours. He has an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in history education. He spent most of his adult working life as a real estate appraiser.

In the late 1990s, Wheeler combined his work experience with his lifelong interest in history and began to pursue historic preservation as an independent consultant throughout his native Wisconsin.

Now 67, Wheeler said he reinvented himself a few years back when he decided to leave the Midwest – and the more he learned about Portland, the more he liked.

“I was impressed with the climate, the topography and in particular the urban cityscape,” he said. “The compact walkable downtown, the mass transit and this amazing array of neighborhoods and yet every neighborhood has its own distinctive appeal and background.”

take place in Portland, including those conducted by the Architectural Heritage Center. Wheeler gives volunteer tours there.

Holly Chamberlain, managing director of the AHC, said Wheeler also is a member of its education committee.

“We appreciate his commitment to sharing information about our historical built environment,” she said.

The AHC offers tours of historic neighborhoods all over the city from May through August. They are accessible at www.visitahc.org/content/ahc-walking-tour-information. The cost is $12 for members and $20 for nonmembers.

Portland Walking Tours, at www.portlandwalkingtours.com, offers year-round tours of Portland. Tours run about $20 with group fares available.

Wheeler’s tours are listed at . They are hosted by the Center for Architecture, which is housed in the American Institute of Architects‘ Portland office.

Wheeler charges $15 for his tours. He says there are many good walking tours in town, but he feels his are more comprehensive and “tell the story of a community and define a sense of place.”

Telling the history of a place helps define it, he said, and Portland is going through a “historic experiment” with high density, mass transit and livability in the face of a growing population.

“How are we going to absorb another one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand (people) over the next few years?” he asked. “How are we going to maintain the charming aspects of our special urban places, our residential neighborhoods?

“With all the teardowns and infill and high-rise apartment buildings … this whole thing about high-density livability is a challenge for the city of Portland,” he said. “For me, as a historian… the cliché is that the past is prelude to the future and explains the present.”

Tours conducted by Wheeler stand out, said architect Mike Riscica, who has taken two of them.

“I’ve taken other architectural tours that can be boring, but he has a great way of telling stories that is not overly esoteric and not too nerdy,” he said. “He conveys the information in a way that’s very easy to grasp and I like how he tells the history of Portland, conveyed in a way that an architect likes to hear it.”

For example, when Wheeler recently conducted a tour on cast iron architecture in Portland, he said that movement began only after a catastrophic downtown fire in 1873 that destroyed many wood-frame buildings. So in 1874, the city passed an ordinance that all new buildings must have a façade of brick, stone or metal. Builders turned to cast iron – much of it locally supplied by former mayor and entrepreneur William S. Ladd, who owned “significant interest” in a Lake Oswego iron factory, Wheeler said.

At one time, Portland had 200 buildings with cast iron facades – more than any city except New York City, Wheeler said. But now Portland has only about 20. In the later part of the 20th century, civic and business leaders decided these facades were worth preserving, but not necessarily with cast iron.

“What they did in the 1970s and 1980s to try and preserve them is they replicated cast iron pilasters on the front of buildings, so what looks like cast iron is actually fiberglass or plaster,” he said. “You can’t tell the difference. They look the same.”

Wheeler suggests that his clients bring a magnet along on his tour so they can tell which are real.

Wheeler recently added another tour, in the Irvington neighborhood in Northeast Portland. It was a “semi-rural area of little orchards and farms,” he said, and didn’t start to grow until the first bridge was built across the Willamette River in the late 1800s.

He started a recent Irvington tour at the Lion and Rose Victorian Bed and Breakfast on Northeast 15th Avenue, he said. The building features a combination of Queen Anne and Craftsman styles.

“It’s a great starting point to tell the story, about the bridge building and the streetcars,” he said.

When Wheeler is giving a tour in South Portland, he also tells of “urban sacrifice” wherein many Italian and eastern European Jewish immigrants were displaced in the name of civic progress.

“So this old south Portland neighborhood was essentially eradicated in the early to mid-1960s,” he said. “Fifty-five square blocks were torn down and that’s now what we call the (South) Auditorium District.”

But even though Portland faces challenges today, Wheeler said that is what makes it an exciting place to live.

“What makes the city today so exciting and the future so interesting is what came before,” he said. “It is all about context. We have stories of people and events and places and all those wrapped together is where we are now.”

The post Historian connects culture to architecture appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Lots of churches have stained glass windows, and for many in the Northwest, those windows came from the Povey Brothers Studio in Portland.

Brothers David and John Povey started their company in 1888 in a warehouse in Old Town Chinatown. Their first major commission was to supply scores of windows for First Presbyterian Church on Southwest Alder Street, including a 25-foot-high, 16-foot-wide window consisting of five panels.

Anna Myers, who heads up the church’s history group, said the massive window is called the “dove window” by church members and was recently restored at a cost of $100,000. Church maintenance dollars paid for the project.

“The center panel shows a dove over a cross on Calvary Hill with an Easter lily at the bottom and a passion flower winding up the cross,” Myers said.

The huge window was restored by David Schlicker Stained Glass in four months, Myers said. The restored window was reinstalled last month, she said, and Schlicker even came to church on a recent Sunday and talked to the congregation about the restoration process.

Schlicker said Povey Brothers Studio was the in the Northwest –not only for its quality of the work but because few others existed. Examples can be seen all over Oregon, from windows in the Pittock Mansion to door transoms in single-family homes to the state seal at the Oregon Supreme Court. There’s even a Povey stained glass skylight over the bar in Huber’s Café, the oldest restaurant in Portland, on Southwest Third Avenue.

Povey Brothers stained glass windows and are an integral part of Portland architecture, Schlicker said, and contributed significantly to the look and feel of Portland, no matter what the style.

“If you go back East, Philadelphia or Boston may have had a dozen (stained glass) studios, so there were a lot of different styles and legacies,” he said. “But here, although a few came and went, we mostly had just them.”

Schlicker said the Povey brothers’ company was known as “the Tiffany Studio of the Northwest” until it shut its doors in 1928. But the brothers’ business really took off, he said, following an exhibit at the Lewis and Clark Exposition in Portland in 1905.

“They were just hitting their stride, but that (the exposition) pushed them into prominence,” he said. “Then everyone from northern California to Alaska to eastern Montana wanted Povey windows.”

Schlicker said the Poveys employed excellent designers, used only the best materials and were able to adapt to different styles, from Victorian to Prairie School to art deco.

“They did the churches downtown on the Park Blocks, but you can drive around the state and go to little farming communities and find Povey windows,” he said.

Val Ballestrem, educational manager for the Architectural Heritage Center, said Povey stained glass windows are also an integral part of Rose City Park Methodist Church, where Povey families were members, as well at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church and St. James Lutheran Church in the Park Blocks and the Old Church on Southwest 11th Avenue.

The Architectural Heritage Center owns several Povey stained glass windows, which will be featured next April in an exhibit on early window and door manufacturers in Portland, he said.

“It was big business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” Ballestrem said. “For us it’s a story that hasn’t been told before – the fact that we had all these companies in town, called fashion door companies, that made all sorts of windows, from plain ones to fancy Povey Brothers stained glass.”

Unearthing all the other types of window and door companies in Portland will be part of the exhibit, Ballestrem said, and that historic research will be facilitated by a grant of nearly $10,000 from the Oregon Heritage Commission.

“There were many window and glass producers in the Portland area,” Ballestrem said. “A lot of companies were doing the wood part of it and some were doing glass. We’re talking about local companies making these products for local builders.”

But the Poveys were a “benchmark of excellence,” Schlicker said, and were prolific producers.

“From 1888 to the Depression that wiped it out in 1928, they had an average of 25 employees,” he said. “Out here, that was a huge studio, which means they pumped out a lot of stained glass.”

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More than 200 people attended a recent fundraiser for the Architectural Heritage Center, a nonprofit museum owned and operated by the Bosco-Milligan Foundation.

Guests were served dinner and wine, and bid on both silent and live auctions. Approximately $120,000 was raised, minus expenses, according to the museum’s managing director, Holly Chamberlain.

“We had about 175 items for the silent auction and 20 items for the live auction,” she said.

The top prize was a home renovation package from Portland design-build company WILLCO, Chamberlain said. However, many other businesses contributed items and services.

Val Ballestrem, education manager for the center, said that most of the dollars raised will go into the nonprofit’s general fund with some devoted to programs such as tours and exhibits. More information is available at .

The center’s next walking tour will be Nov. 7, from 10 a.m. to noon. It will showcase the Piedmont and Walnut Park areas, and show examples of Queen Anne, Arts and Crafts, Byzantine, Jacobean and Prairie styles, according to the website.

The center’s current exhibit, “Strength, Utility and Beauty: Architectural Metal in the Gilded Age,” features nearly 2,000 metal artifacts used in Portland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many were produced locally, and were built to last, Ballestrem said.

One artifact is a six-foot wooden carving of a lute with ivy covering that formerly was installed beneath the cornice of the old Allen Music store – where the World Trade Center is now near the foot of Salmon Street.

The next program hosted by the center will be a lecture: “Ancient Walls: Structural and Decorative Stone in Downtown Portland Architecture.” It will take place Nov. 10, at 7 p.m., at the center – 701 S.E. Grand St.

The museum sponsors only one major exhibit per year, and the next one will focus on the history of Portland’s many former door and window manufacturers, Ballestrem said.

“We will display an amazing collection of stained glass and leaded glass windows and also talk about window manufacturing, which was big business in Portland in the last (of the) 19th and early 20th centuries,” he said. “For us it’s a story that hasn’t been told before. In fact, we had companies all over town called fashion door companies that made all sorts of windows, from plain to fancy Povey Brothers stained glass.”

Povey Brothers Studio operated from 1888 to 1928 and was known as “the Tiffany of the West,” producing windows for homes, churches and commercial buildings throughout the West. The new exhibit will open next spring.

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Before attending the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts in Eugene, Josette Katcha spent several years working for a historic preservation consultant in Milwaukee.

In the firm’s historic restoration projects, she was struck by the use of building materials salvaged from old structures that had been torn down.

“We were buying these doors from the other side of the country and had them shipped to the Midwest,” Katcha said. “I thought, ‘What is the history of these doors?’ ”

The experience inspired her terminal project in preparation for earning a graduate degree this month from the university’s Historic Preservation Program. She surveyed preservation firms, architects and architectural salvage businesses to learn more about the prevalence of incorporating used building materials into restoration projects. Last month, Katcha presented her findings in Portland at the university’s White Stag Block in a talk titled “Save or Scrap: Deconstructing the Impact of Architectural Salvage on Historic Preservation.”

“I’d been thinking about how architectural salvage has become a huge design trend and what the impacts are on historic preservation,” she said. “How are these materials being used?”

Katcha sent out 69 surveys nationwide, but most her responses came from either the Midwest or the Pacific Northwest where she had personal connections. She found that 87 percent of architects surveyed believe the use of architectural salvage is increasing and 79 percent have incorporated the used materials into past projects, mostly for sustainability and aesthetic reasons. The salvage companies she surveyed reflected this increased interest in the design industry and reported that in the past five years business is up.

Most of the preservation firms that responded to the survey said they’ve used architectural salvage in restoration projects and agreed that the overall practice of using those materials is increasing in the build industry. But they reported feeling conflicted about whether it was appropriate to use salvaged materials to replace lost or damaged portions of a historic property. They also disagreed about whether increasing use of architectural salvage in the build industry is a threat to historic preservation and encourages demolitions of older properties.

These responses were among the most insightful as Katcha compiled her report on the survey.

“The point was to identify what the common feelings are of architectural salvage in the preservation community,” she said.

She was particularly curious about survey responses from professionals working in Portland, where preservationists and neighborhood groups have raised alarm about the number of older homes being torn down to make way for new construction. City officials have since revised policies in regard to demolition permits and are considering establishing a program that provides incentives to encourage salvaging reusable materials from buildings that are torn down.

“When you’re talking about Portland, we have a demolition epidemic,” Katcha said. “If we can encourage deconstruction of buildings for architectural salvage, are we encouraging demolition?”

This question touches on the dilemma that preservationists occasionally face in regard to architectural salvage, said Peggy Moretti, executive director of Portland-based Restore Oregon. Members of the nonprofit preservation advocacy organization believe materials from historically significant buildings that are torn down should be salvaged, but only advocate for this as a last resort if the structure cannot otherwise be saved intact, she said.

“We are very concerned with what a tiny percentage of buildings that are demolished are actually salvaged,” Moretti said.

But she added, “Our first choice for a building that is truly a historic building is restoration or preservation.”

Cathy Galbraith, executive director of the Portland-based Architectural Heritage Center, agreed.

“I’m actually thrilled that there is a market for (salvaged) materials, unless they contribute to something being demolished,” she said. “I would never condemn anybody for using salvage.”

Galbraith cautions property owners to document the use of salvaged materials in restoration projects. Otherwise, the next owner may mistake those replacements as part of the original construction, she said.

“It can result in misinterpretations down the line,” she said.

Galbraith’s biggest worry about architectural salvage is property owners claiming that the technique mitigates tearing down a historic property instead of preserving it.

“It’s sort of a nice, easy attaboy for demolish advocates,” she said. “Deconstruction and demolition are never good options.”

Ian Johnson, a historian with the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, said he’s not sure if the popularity of architectural salvage, especially in new construction, is the main factor contributing to demolitions.

“That’s always the great fear that the burgeoning market for these materials is encouraging buildings to be torn down,” he said, “but I don’t know if they’re correlated.”

Johnson said State Historic Preservation Office officials have no problem with restoration efforts that use salvaged materials. Officials consider it a means to meet federal standards established by the Secretary of the Interior to “replace in kind” missing or damaged portions of a historic structure, he said.

“There is a place for salvage in that, but we want to know what (was) salvaged and what was not,” Johnson said.

Katcha said she agrees with increasing acceptance of salvage as part of preservation, even if that means finding new uses for the pieces of a historic building.

“I think the preservation community is moving in the right direction in that sense,” she said. “We’re getting more comfortable that we just want these buildings to work, and if they don’t work, how can we tell a story with these materials?”

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Portland may not be known for snow during its winter months, but the local creative spirit prevails through the cold. This year, the  is hosting an exhibit dedicated to holiday cheer for Portlanders with a mind for architecture.

The exhibit, dubbed the Architecture and Cityscapes, is free and open to the public through December, with a reception planned for Dec. 7. The exhibit opens Nov. 19 at the AHC, located at , and the architectural-themed work will remain on display through Jan. 31.

The AHC states that “established artists from the Portland community were invited to show in this special architecture themed holiday exhibit,” meaning patrons can expect to see projects that blend holiday cheer with the unique architecture found across Portland. Varying mediums and print sizes will be on sale throughout the exhibit.

Gracie Campbell, Shawn Demarest, Leah Faure, CJ Hurley, Stephen Korbich, Jean Thomas and Aaron Trotter are all contributing to the exhibit. They represent a very wide range of backgrounds, and patrons can meet them at the free reception on Dec. 7 at the center.

The AHC is a cornerstone of the Portland architecture community, a nonprofit center founded by the Bosco-Milligan Foundation. The center is dedicated to preserving Portland’s awesomely unique architectural community, and it hosts exhibits and tours throughout the year. It’s also a hot spot for info on what’s happening among architectural engineering and design in the City of Roses and the Pacific Northwest.

More information on the AHC and its exhibits or in person at the center’s Southeast Portland location.

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