After more than three hours of debate Monday, the only sure thing about the design of the Portland Building improvement project is that the team in charge will return before the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission on��July 24.

City staff had recommended that the commission approve the team’s restoration plan with conditions. But the commission held off on making a decision Monday after��Kate Kearney, communications director for Docomomo Oregon, requested that the public record be kept open to allow further testimony. Docomomo Oregon is a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the architecture, art, landscape and urban design of the modern movement.

That request triggered an automatic 21-day period for further testimony to be taken and various rebuttal statements to be entered into the record.

Even if the delay had not occurred, it was unclear exactly what action the commission would have taken.

“I am up in the air,” Commission Chairman��Kirk Ranzetta said.

Commissioner��Matthew Roman indicated that he would have voted to approve the proposed design. Commissioners��Wendy Chung and��Annie Mahoney��were troubled by the plan, but noncommittal as to which way they were leaning.

The Portland Building, designed by the late Michael Graves, is considered an iconic example of postmodern architecture. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. A sticking point in the proposed improvement plans for the building at 1120 S.W. Fifth Ave. is whether installing a rain screen over the structure could cause it to be removed from the national register.

That concern was spurred by a letter from the National Park Service in which it addressed the materials in the proposed rain screen. Its early opinion was that aluminum in the rain screen would constitute a substantial change to the building and could lead to it being delisted.

“We have a disagreement with SHPO (the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office) and NPS (National Park Service) over the definition of preservation,” said Erica Ceder, an architect with project designer DLR Group. “I think that this is part of a larger conversation in preservation. This is a different building type. The principles of preservation are hard to apply.”

It’s unclear if proposed modifications would result the Portland Building being delisted. The NPS based its letter on an earlier version of the plan presented at a design advice request hearing last year. The building could be removed from the national register only if requested by someone and if an ensuing investigation by the NPS found the changes were so significant that they affected architectural significance.

Commissioners were even split over whether the possibility of the building being delisted would be reason enough to deny approval of the plan.

“I am not swayed by the materiality argument,” Roman said. “It’s an iconic building, but not because of the materials that were used, but more of the overall forms. I think all of Michael Graves’ design intentions are carried forward. What the building represents, whether it’s on the national register or not, to me is unaltered by what is being proposed. What it symbolizes won’t change whether it’s listed or delisted.”

Patrick Burke, senior architect at Michael Graves Architecture & Design, was a student when Graves worked on the Portland Building project. He said Graves would likely have approved of the preservation plan and was always more concerned about his vision coming to life than which materials were used.

Burke told a story of contractors coming to Graves and telling him that the only way to build the structure within budget was to use a concrete skin and paint it instead of using stucco as he preferred.

“There is a famous quote that we have used since,” Burke said. “Michael said, ‘I don’t care if we make it out of bleeping oatmeal; we are going to get this thing in the budget.’”

Also, Burke doesn’t believe the building’s listing on the national register was a focus of pride for Graves.

“In all honesty, I am not sure that was important to him,” he said. “The building design mattered to him more than what list it was on. When this was put on the national registry, he didn’t exactly jump for joy.”

For commissioners, however, the possibility of the building losing its national recognition is a serious concern.

“To me, in this particular matter, we have an obligation to protect the resource,” Ranzetta said. “If it is delisted as a consequence of operation that we authorized, I would say we failed in that obligation.”

Portland’s rainy weather and the tight budget for original construction are big reasons why the 35-year-old building needs improvements totaling $195 million. Tiles were stuck on a concrete structure, and an inadequate seal has resulted in water leaking into walls and causing significant structural damage.

The city considered other options, including demolition, but decided the rain screen fit within its budget and preserved the building’s unique look and architectural importance.

The basic plan is to cover the building with aluminum plates that closely, but don’t exactly, match the building’s current appearance. The plates will shield the structure from the elements. Under the plan, tiles will be larger than the originals and structural changes will increase seismic strength.

The possibility that those changes could result in Portland losing one of its few structures on the national register was enough to convince Restore Oregon to oppose the proposed plan.

“Do not alter the building in this way,” said Dan Everhart, preservation programs manager for the group.

With the 21-day delay, the design team will have a chance to seek additional guidance from the NPS and possibly learn whether the current plan would allow the building to stay on the register.

“NPS doesn’t normally weigh in until after construction,” Ceder said. “There is really no time for a response.”

Given the timeline that the city and the commission are working under, the commission may have to choose between risking the listing on the national register or saving the building.

“If it got delisted, but got saved,” Roman said, “that, for me, is the higher goal.”

The post Iconic structure’s fate unclear appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Portland Building, which houses more than 1,300 city employees in dozens of agencies, is one of the most iconic buildings in the City of Roses. But it also has proven to be one of the most trouble-prone.

Almost immediately after the building was completed in 1982, water began leaking into it. From 1990 to 2012, eight major efforts were launched to address structural performance issues.

“(The City Council) finally decided that nickel and diming it wasn’t working,” said Jen Clodius, a senior management analyst and public information officer for the Portland Office of Management and Finance. “Instead of throwing chump change at it, last year they authorized the (full reconstruction) project.”

The project has a budget of $195 million and is scheduled for completion by 2020. Fixing a myriad of structural problems will be a tall order.

Chief among the issues is the performance of the building’s envelope. The mostly reinforced concrete enclosure lacks water-shedding features included in many comparable buildings. Also, the concrete structure has no exterior cladding other than paint. The inability to shed water has caused extensive damage to both the building’s interior and exterior.

DLR Group was contracted to devise a plan to address the structure’s numerous issues.

“Clearly a very high priority is that the envelope perform and keep water out,” said Carla Weinheimer, project manager for DLR Group. “The initial approach was not going to allow that envelope to work.”

While water leakage was the highest priority, it is not the only architectural challenge facing the project team. The fact that the building was constructed from so many different types of material also poses difficulty.

“We have stucco, tile and concrete,” said Kristin Wells, project manager for the city of Portland. “They all move at different rates. The way they move together is a challenge. It creates a point of weakness.”

Energy efficiency was a high priority when the building was built. Unfortunately, the technology of the 1970s and early 80s presented obstacles to meeting those goals.

“The black glass they used back in 1982 was a response to the energy crisis,” Weinheimer said. “The light is compromised by the glass. One thing we want to see is improved daylight.”

While addressing all of those technical issues, the project team is also charged with preserving the look of one of the most iconic examples of postmodern architecture in the country.

“A big question was how do we respect and treat it in a way that enhances the technical performance and maintains the architectural concept of the building,” Weinheimer said.

The solution came from evaluating methods used for other renovation projects. Owners of the Standard Oil Building in Chicago replaced all of the original marble cladding when it cracked under thermal and wind pressures. A new skin of modern curtain-wall framing and glazing was used to stop leaking at the Lever House in New York. Entirely new front glazing was used at Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago to address damage from condensation and harsh weather.

Each of those solutions required significant changes to the buildings’ appearances. That was something the Portland design team wanted to avoid.

“… The key thing to remember is we had to address the systems that comprised the envelope,” Wells said. “To be doing this significant a renovation on a building of this age hasn’t been done a lot.”

After mulling their options, design team members settled on putting a rain screen over the existing façade. The screen will be able to shed water, relieve wind pressure and control temperature fluctuations to prevent leaks. It is also believed that the screen will stop more damage to the building’s interior.

Other advantages of the rain screen system is that there is no need to demolish existing materials and it can match the building’s exterior enclosure appearance, planar relationships and joint patterns.

“The building is significant because of what people see,” Weinheimer said. “That is the big picture.”

The rain screen will essentially create a second layer on the building’s skin. It will use multiple materials to replicate the building’s look.��For instance, aluminum frames will replicate original frame sight lines and colors near the top of the building. Duplicate terra-cotta green tiles will mount onto concealed custom aluminum frames to duplicate existing green clay tile glazed hard surfaces at the lower three levels.

Aluminum panels with attached aluminum red tile shapes will be used to replicate the building’s iconic red ceramic tiles.��Aluminum plate panels will also be used to match the original painted concrete��surfaces.

“We are going to create a layer on the exterior of the building behind which there is a second layer that allows the water to drain,” Weinheimer said. “That means that what you will see is a layer that replicates the building’s appearance and has that outer layer.”

While the approach has been used in the past, it has seldom been used on buildings with historical significance comparable to the Portland Building’s. When options were considered, the choice was clear to the design team.

“As a team we had to ask ourselves what system performs and gives us the aesthetics as well,” Wells said. “It was a clear way to proceed. There aren’t a lot of other options.”

The design team is looking forward to implementing its plan despite the challenges presented by refurbishing one of most architecturally significant buildings in Portland. The plan did get the seal of approval of Michael Graves Architecture & Design, the firm responsible for the building’s original design.

“Looking at it from our own standpoint, it’s an interesting design problem,” Weinheimer said. “We know this will be looked at nationally and internationally. We have been given a chance. With this new holistic approach, we will make the building useful and wonderful.”

The post Handling a Portland icon with care appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city will spend $195 million to retrofit the Portland Building, which is only 33 years old but maligned by structural defects and other flaws.

The exterior of the Michael Graves-designed postmodern office building will be left alone while the inside is gutted and given a seismic overhaul, per a preliminary plan approved by the Portland City Council on Wednesday.

The city’s chief administrative officer, Fred Miller, told the council that he wants to help minimize the project cost by keeping some of the 1,300 city employees who work at the Portland Building there during construction. Presently, approximately $30 million would be used to relocate employees and secure temporary workspace during the five-year project.

“We could save millions,” Miller said.

The council on Wednesday heard and approved three resolutions related to the project, bringing a formal end to its budget-setting phase. The city will now solicit bids from contractors before a design-build contract is considered by the council.

City commissioners were dismayed the cost was so high above initial estimates, one of��which was less than��$100 million. Miller told the council it would be more expensive to tear down the Portland Building and start over, or build elsewhere.

“It’s important to note that this is the lowest-cost option,” Commissioner Nick Fish said.

Fish��and the other commissioners approved the first��resolution to set a timeline of five years and a cost of $195 million.��They repeatedly sought assurance from Miller that those numbers would not grow.

“I’m still skeptical,” said Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who ultimately voted to approve the resolution.

The second resolution equalized rents across all city departments. The renovation will be funded through the rent increases and a 5 percent appropriation from the general fund.

The third resolution – to dedicate 1 percent of the project cost to opportunities for women and minorities – elicited the most discussion on Wednesday. Minority business owners and advocates questioned the figure and asked how officials determined it.

“Although it sounds like a good number, I’d like to know how much that really is,” said Maurice Rahming, president of O’Neill Electric.

Also, three of the building’s current vendors – two restaurateurs and a retail shop operator – spoke at the hearing and sought reassurances about the project.

The 15-story Portland Building was completed in 1982 for $25 million. The iconic Portlandia statue was added near the front entrance three years later. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; however, it’s not up to current seismic code and is subject to plumbing and electrical problems. Those issues and the nontraditional exterior have frequently drawn criticism.

“You have $195 million,” Mayor Charlie Hales told Miller. “Make this right … make us proud.”

The post Portland Building will get $195 million remodel appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Michael Graves, the prolific postmodern architect who designed the famed and often despised Portland Building, died Thursday of natural causes at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 80.

His death was confirmed by his architecture and design firm, Michael Graves Architecture & Design.

“Since founding the firm in 1964, Michael transformed the role of architects and designers, and even the place of design in our everyday lives,” read a on the firm’s website. “For those of us who had the opportunity to work closely with Michael, we knew him as an extraordinary designer, teacher, mentor and friend.”

Graves’ design of the Portland Building, completed in 1982 to house city government offices, helped launch his architecture career. The controversial structure has been heralded as one defining the emergence of postmodern architecture and criticized as an architectural atrocity.

When he visited Portland last fall to give a lecture on the project and defend his design, Graves said he was baffled why Portland residents don’t share his love for the iconic city-owned building.

“I don’t know where the hostility comes from; that disturbs me,” he told the sold-out crowd at the Portland Art Museum. “I think you all would be happy to pick up any history of architecture in the 20th century and find your building. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with you?”

Shortly after its completion, the Portland Building was praised as a break from the modernist architecture typical of public buildings and appeared on the cover of TIME magazine. In 2012, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But last year a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix structural problems and leaks. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials are now planning a remodel.

In 1980, Graves won an architecture competition to design the building for the city of Portland. At the time, he was a little-known architecture professor at Princeton University, and it became his first major project.

Graves went on to leverage this success to win other design competitions. His work includes the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky., the Denver Public Library and lines of kitchen products and furniture for Target and J.C. Penney.

After an infection in 2003 rendered him unable to walk, Graves leaned on personal experience to design disabled veteran housing and products such as wheelchairs, collapsible canes and showerheads.

The post Portland Building architect dies at 80 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The City Council at a Tuesday work session entertained possibilities for fixing the myriad problems plaguing the Portland Building.

“They were in a work session today to talk about options – funding options and timeline options,” said Dana Haynes, Mayor Charlie Hales‘ communications officer. “No decisions were made.”

Staffers from the city’s Office of Management and Finance estimate that updating the building’s exterior would cost about $67 million, Haynes said. Financing for exterior renovations would likely be sought through a 20-year or 30-year bond.

“They’re going to have another work session in March,” Haynes said. “The Office of Finance and Management is planning to present rough estimates on how much fixing up the interior and exterior would cost.”

The focus of interior renovations would be creating more natural light in office spaces and “creating a healthier work environment” for employees, Haynes said.

The building, which two years ago was added to the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by renowned architect Michael Graves. Since its completion in 1982, the building has been plagued by structural issues and leaks.

The post City Council hears options for Portland Building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When a committee of local industry professionals first convened last spring to advise the city of Portland on plans to renovate the Portland Building their message was clear: Don’t make the same mistake twice.

“The city thought the best strategy would be fix the obvious problems, which are really limited to the structural issues and the building leaks,” said committee member Bing Sheldon, co-founder of Portland-based SERA Architects. “Our advice was, ‘Look, you got into this mess in the first place by budgeting too little for this building.’ I think everybody felt very strongly that if the city was going to fix the building, they ought to make it a 100-year building.”

City officials are taking this recommendation and others made by the six-member volunteer advisory committee seriously as they move forward on investigating the costs and best moves to make in renovating the historic — and controversial – postmodern structure, said Fred Miller, the city’s chief administrative officer and director of the Office of Management and Finance.

Steps to improve drab city government offices in the building the project could include replacing tinted windows with clear glass to bring in more light, tearing out drop ceilings and opening up floor plans. Renovation plans could also call for upgrading heating, ventilation, mechanical and electrical systems, and elevators, and improving access for people with disabilities.

Earlier this year, a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix up the Portland Building, which was completed in 1982. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials could soon seek proposals from developers, architects and contractors for a remodel. Miller said he hopes to secure financing by early next year for a supplemental study that will look into the costs of various renovation options and the feasibility of making those upgrades while portions of the building are still occupied.

“We know the route we’re headed, but it could end up in various ways,” he said. “A lot of people don’t want this building torn down. If you’re going to maintain it, why not invest in it?”

Seeking outside input

The renovation project will involve considering that the Portland Building was listed two years ago on the National Register of Historic Places and that its designer, renowned architect Michael Graves, is still alive. Miller said city officials plan to seek input on the renovation plans from Graves, a principal of Princeton, N.J.-based architecture and design firm Michael Graves & Associates.

“We don’t want to do anything that violates his sense of the building,” Miller said.

Earlier this month, Graves visited Portland at the invitation of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center to give a lecture during Design Week Portland where he discussed how to improve the Portland Building. Graves’ comments during the lecture in favor of replacing the building’s tinted glass and modifying the ground level to better support retail space will be helpful as the city moves ahead with gaining approval for changes to the historic building from the National Park Service, which oversees the National Register, said advisory committee member John Russell of Portland-based Russell Development.

“His coming here and being open to changes is very important because it is a landmark building,” Russell said.

Along with consulting Graves, Miller said he felt it was important to reach out to local professionals who’ve worked on similar projects. The advisory committee he assembled for this purpose includes industry leaders in architecture, real estate, development and construction. Seeking proposals from developers, architects and contractors on how to renovate the building could further help in the planning process, Miller said.

“We need to do something. We can’t just let it go,” he said. “We’re definitely going to capitalize on outside expertise.”

��

Looking beyond $95M repair estimate

Miller said he’s long wanted to know more about the city’s options beyond the $95 million in repairs outlined in an in-depth assessment completed by Portland-based FFA Architecture and Interiors on the building’s envelope and structural elements.

“I can’t be comfortable with that until I know what the alternatives are,” he said.

A more accurate cost estimate on renovating the Portland Building will help the city determine how much is needed for bonds to finance the project, Miller said. Since the $95 million estimate is strictly to fix leaks and structural problems, a more extensive renovation will likely cost more, he said.

“It’s got to function like a new building,” Miller said. “You want something that’s functional and represents a good investment.”

Sheldon said a renovation that does more than repair the building will be worth it.

“Politically, this is a stubbed toe anyway so as long as you’re being criticized you might as well do it right,” he said. “These are big problems. That’s why the price tag is as big as it is.”

One potential savings could be avoiding the estimated $28 million cost of temporarily moving everyone out of the building while it’s renovated, Miller said. ��This could be achieved by only renovating several floors at time.

Russell said he believes the Portland Building can be fixed seismically without taking everyone out. This could be similar to an asbestos abatement project his company did on the 200 Market Building in downtown Portland while it was still occupied, he said.

“There is a huge savings if the building is fixed when it’s partially occupied,” Russell said.

Sheldon disagreed. Extra costs would be incurred while moving workers around and much of the construction work would have to happen at night, he said.

“The biggest problem is it will take longer to do it that way and it’s more expensive,” Sheldon said.

He recommended a renovation to the Portland Building similar to a modernization project designed by SERA Architects that transformed Portland’s Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building.

“The first thing you do is you remove all the suspended ceilings and remove all the ducting, and that’s exactly what we did in Wendell Wyatt,” he said. “All of a sudden you have a much more pleasant environment.”

Removing the ceilings in the Portland Building would be transformative, Russell said.

“The new cutting-edge standard for workplaces is the ceiling is removed,” he said. “That’s a perfect solution for that building.”

Open floor plans would also make the building a better place to work, Sheldon said.

“Design the interior so that instead of how it’s chopped up into private offices, it’s open,” Sheldon said. “If that were done than the Portland building would be a remarkably better building. It’s not impossible. To me, it’s not condemned. I think you could make significant improvements.”

The post Reimagining the Portland Building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

When Michael Graves returned to Portland this week, he visited the building that launched his famed architecture career.

More than 30 years later, the Portland Building still took his breath away.

“I had a big smile on my face that I couldn’t wipe off,” he said Thursday. “It was joy.”

Graves is baffled why Portland residents don’t share his love for the iconic city-owned building. The controversial structure has been both heralded as one defining the emergence of postmodern architecture and criticized as an architectural atrocity.

“I don’t know where the hostility comes from; that disturbs me,” he told the sold-out crowd for a lecture he gave Thursday at the Portland Art Museum. “I think you all would be happy to pick up any history of architecture in the 20th century and find your building. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with you?”

The Portland Building, completed in 1982 to house city government offices, was praised as a break from the modernist architecture typical of public buildings. A year later, it appeared on the cover of TIME magazine and in 2012 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But earlier this year, a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix structural problems and leaks. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials will soon seek proposals from developers, architects and contractors for a remodel.

In light of plans to renovate the Portland Building, Graves, a principal of Princeton, N.J.-based architecture and design firm Michael Graves & Associates, traveled to Portland to defend his design and offer feedback on how to improve it. Whatever the city decides to do, it shouldn’t demolish the building, he pleaded.

“The whole idea of tearing the building down is like killing a child for me,” he said. “It was a work of architecture and art that so many people participated in.”

Graves is disappointed that the only invitation he has received to share how the building should be renovated has come from the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center to speak during Design Week Portland. Graves, 80, wondered before the lecture why city officials haven’t yet reached out to him as they proceed with renovation plans.

“They’re not talking to me, which seems kind of strange with the architect alive and kicking,” he said.

Kelly Ball, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management & Finance, which oversees city facilities, said plans for the renovation are in the early stages. A committee of local industry leaders will advise the city’s chief administrative officer on the project and it’s unclear at this point what role Graves will play in the process, she said.

Yeon Center Executive Director Randy Gragg said he encouraged Graves to speak publicly about the future of the Portland Building because his insight would be valuable in the debate on its fate.

“We’re in the process of deciding what’s going to happen to this building, and who better to involve in that discussion than the architect?” Gragg told attendees of Thursday’s lecture. “Michael Graves very graciously, and bravely, agreed.”

In 1980, Graves won an architecture competition to design the building for the city of Portland. At the time, he was a little-known architecture professor at Princeton University, and it became his first major project.

Graves went on to leverage this success to win other design competitions. His work includes the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky., the Denver Public Library and lines of kitchen products and furniture first for Target and now J.C. Penney.

After an infection in 2003 rendered him unable to walk, Graves used personal experience to inspire designs for disabled veteran housing and products such as wheelchairs, collapsible canes and showerheads.

It’s odd, Graves said, to travel to Portland where he’s seen as a controversial figure because most of his designs in other parts of the U.S. and international locales are met with acclaim. Criticism of the Portland Building’s dreary interiors and lack of natural light were beyond his control, he said.

“I wasn’t part of the interiors, and that’s what people blame me for,” Graves said. “It’s a bit tragic that I get blamed for the interiors when I didn’t do it.”

Another factor contributing to the building’s current problems was its $24 million budget, he said. This was far below what was needed to construct the building Graves said he imagined.

“I wanted to create a great civic building and I wanted to make a building that was significant, but the building had a very low budget,” he said. “It was very difficult to make a good, civic building with $24 million.”

At the time that the building was constructed, the country was going through an energy crisis and Graves said he was asked to tint the windows. One of the first changes he would make to improve the building would be to install clear glass replacements to expose the building to more light. He also recommended encasing the loggia in glass and turning it into a retail space.

The lobby could use some work, Graves said. He was appalled when he went into the building last week.

“It’s a mess,” he said. “They don’t keep it up. (There were) papers everywhere. There’s no sense of tidiness at all.”

Today’s generation of Portland architects could learn a thing or two from the flair of the Portland Building, Graves said. On his recent visit to the city he was utterly unimpressed with recent additions to the skyline.

“It puts me to sleep,” he said. “It’s completely boring.”

He scoffed at a slide Gragg showed during the lecture of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building before and after it was renovated.

“I’d rather have the old box, and that’s pretty dreadful,” Graves said.

At least the Portland Building is still being talked about, he said.

“I just shrug my shoulders,” Graves said. “Who else is going to get 400 people to come hear you talk about your building?”

The post Portland Building architect defends his creation appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland Building architect Michael Graves next month will give a talk on the future of the iconic postmodern building.

The University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center and the Portland Art Museum will host “Michael Graves Live” on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. in the Fields Ballroom at the museum, 1219 S.W. Park Ave.

Graves, a principal of architecture and design firm Michael Graves & Associates, will discuss which portions of the city of Portland-owned building should be preserved and which might change during a planned renovation to fix structural problems and leaks. Yeon Center Executive Director Randy Gragg will facilitate the talk, which also will delve into Graves’ career since designing the Portland Building.

“This is one of the late twentieth century’s great designers,” Gragg said. “He’s changed things in product design and certainly in architecture.”

The Portland Building, completed in 1981, was heralded as a break from modernist architecture typical of public buildings. A year later, it appeared on the cover of TIME magazine and in 2012 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

But earlier this year, a city report concluded that $95 million worth of repairs are needed to fix defects and address seismic issues. After considering several options, including building demolition, city officials will soon seek proposals from developers, architects and contractors for a remodel.

When debate about the fate of the Portland Building began, Gragg said he reached out Graves to seek his take on how his design could be improved.

“I just thought we’re having this discussion and who better to involve in it than the designer himself,” Gragg said.

Besides the Portland Building, Graves has designed the Humana Building in Louisville, Ky., the Denver Public Library and a line of kitchen utensils for Target.

After an infection rendered him a quadriplegic in 2003, Graves has used personal experience to inspire designs for disabled veteran housing and products such as wheelchairs, collapsible canes and showerheads.

Tickets for the event are $10 and can be purchased online at .

The post Lecture by Portland Building architect set for next month appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Thirty years after it was completed, the Portland Building continues to elicit strong opinions.

The controversial structure, designed by world-renowned architect and product designer Michael Graves, has been declared both an architectural atrocity and a brilliant piece of innovation. Some people criticize its small windows and low ceilings, while others laud it as the spark that started the postmodernism architecture movement.

One thing everyone can agree on, however, is that the building has had an impact – whether positive or negative – on the city and its architectural community.

“The Portland Building did get people talking, which was useful in a city where the 1970s had brought largely corporate box architecture,” said Carl Abbott, who teaches urban studies and planning at and is writing a book on the development of city planning in Portland. “For a couple years, it put Portland on the national architecture map.”

The 15-story, 362,422-square-foot building was the result of a design competition sponsored by the city in 1979. Two other architects created designs of glass and concrete, but Graves chose to use terra-cotta tile and vibrant colors inspired by architecture he had seen on a recent trip to Italy. According to Graves, city officials were confused by his approach.

“The submissions went to City Council, and the color on it was not to their liking – they were all modernists,” Graves said. “With the rain, everything in Portland is gray. Why would I make a gray building? I did it to spice things up.”

The council named Graves the winner – in part, he admits, because one of the other competitors exceeded budget restrictions.

“As the building emerged and was occupied, displaying its many deficiencies as a functional space, opinion shifted as reality set in,” Abbott said. “Ironically, the attention to the building may have turned opinion leaders away from innovation. (They said,) ‘We tried to be cutting edge; we didn’t like what we got, so let’s be more cautious.’ ”

Despite being only three decades old, the building last year was added to the National Register of Historic Places, adding fuel to the debate. Most structures on the register are at least 50 years old, though exceptions have been made, including in Portland.

“There were a lot of discussions of whether the building was a success not only for what Graves wanted it to do, but also what it gave to the city,” said Kristen Minor, who wrote the building’s 40-page nomination report. “We noticed that people who were around the building on a daily basis had a different opinion of it than people in Washington, D.C.; Europe and around the world, who expected us to nominate it.”

Minor, preservation planner with , said that although she is aware that many people still dislike the building’s interior, she believes the exterior is a significant piece of architectural history that should be recognized.

“It spawned this explosion of creative alternatives to modernism,” Minor said. “People have a love and hate relationship with that building, and we wanted to emphasize the positive aspects of it.”

Graves said he wasn’t surprised the building was listed on the national register. He pointed out that the building’s notoriously poorly lit interior was not a result of his work.

“It had such a low budget,” he said. “I was criticized for putting the windows in too small, but it got more expensive the more glass I had. I wasn’t the one who put the workers near the windows, limiting the light let in. Most people don’t realize I didn’t design the interior.”

Despite proceeding to design award-winning buildings and products worldwide, Graves holds the Portland Building as one of his greatest achievements. He still enjoys talking about the sculpture that sits in front, Portlandia.

Graves wanted to incorporate Portland’s history in the building, so he designed a 34-foot replica of the woman figure in the city’s seal. Although Raymond Kaskey is credited with creating the sculpture, Graves said he drew its original design. No one had a name for the figure, so he named her after the city.

Graves also believes the building’s design is one of his most influential.

“I’ve seen this building in Japan, China, Australia … it’s been copied all over the world,” he said.

As for the enduring controversy, Graves doesn’t seem to mind.

“At least they’re still talking about it,” he said.

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The Portland Public Service Building, better known as the Portland Building, has gotten its due. The 29-year-old building was listed officially on the National Register of Historic Places on Oct. 25, according to a National Parks Service document .

National Register listing means that major changes to the building will require historic review, and also that certain rehabilitation projects will be eligible for historic tax credits.

The Portland Building’s listing on the National Register is unusual because the building is much younger than the 50-year cutoff that usually designates a historic building. The Portland Building was completed in 1982, making it just 29 years old.

Architect Michael Graves said via email he was honored and proud of the building.

“It pleases me tremendously that the Portland Building has been given National Historic Register designation,” he said.�� “The building occupies such a pivotal place in the architecture of the last quarter of the 20^th century and its appropriateness for historic status has now been confirmed.�� The building represents the first of many which have helped redefine the traditional urban fabric of our cities.”

Because the Portland Building is a public building, anyone could nominate it for historic listing. In this case, the building’s nomination was prepared was Peter Meijer Architects.

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