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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

News / Build Out Designers Rant About Rose Quarter Process

Posted by Sarah Mirk on Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 11:00 PM

After Mayor Adams announced a stay of execution for Memorial Coliseum yesterday, I thought tonight's planned rally to save the building would be sort of back-patting victory party.

But instead, the 30 planners and preservationists who gathered downtown tonight had some harsh critiques of the Rose Quarter redevelopment process and say they'll keep pressuring the city to slow down the major projects planned for the area. "What seems to be lacking is a vision. The questions they're asking are can it all fit, can it be done on a budget, but not, is it the right thing for Portland? It's not like the tram, where the goal was, 'Let's make something great,'" says designer Randy Higgins.

"What do you think about the process for this redevelopment?" I asked.
"There is no process!" says architect Stuart Emmons, "They figure out what they're going to do and then try to jam it down our throats! This is enormous. This project has all these implications and we're trying to decide it on a weekend."

Higgins, Emmons and others are upset that, so far, the design of the Rose Quarter projects have been given to large corporations instead of finding local talent to do the job. Cordish Company is signed up to turn the area into Rose Quarter Live! and the Beavers ballpark design was given to Ellerbe Becket, an architecture firm with no offices in Portland but offices in DC, Dallas and Dubai.

"We're a town that's got a reputation for visionary design and we didn't get that reputation by hiring out of town designers," complains strategic designer Don Rood. "The local creative class is not really part of the equation," agrees Higgins.

In his announcement yesterday, the mayor said he feels an urgency to move quickly on the Rose Quarter both because the city needs to meet Major League Soccer's deadlines and because "stimulus projects" like the stadium will ease the 18 percent unemployment in Oregon's construction industry. Also I should point out that it wasn't the city who hired Cordish to redevelop the Rose Quarter, the Blazers have development rights on the area. But it's a valid question to ask whether local talent (and businesses) could be a bigger part of the development. The angry architects are meeting with the mayor's staff tomorrow morning - we'll see what sort of plans come out of that discussion.

At the back of the room during the low-key "rally" were two architects who actually helped design Memorial Coliseum back in the mid-60s. Bill Rouzie and Ned Kirschbaum are old enough to remember when the Winterhawks were called the Buckaroos. I asked what they thought of all the recent hubbub over the merits of their building (to quote: Memorial Coliseum is "an ugly monstrosity"). "I like it quite a lot. On nice days when people were ice skating, they could bring the curtains down and look out at the city," recalled Kirschbaum. "There's always going to be split opinion," replied Rouzie, explaining how the Coliseum's design came about. "The thing we hated was the mouselike approach to the seats in most stadiums, where you walk blindly through these dark corridors."
008f/1240377190-coliseum.jpg

Would you call it a dirty old building to their cute old faces?

Rouzie personally designed the big chip at the front of the Coliseum (seen here sheltering Blazer's refugees). "Detail wise it takes a lot to design something simple," says Rouzie.

 

Comments (16) RSS

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1
smirk, I had made a conscious decision to leave you alone and to let you mature into a better writer.

BUT WHAT THE FUCK?!? Do not take text mark-up advice from Mr. Matt Davis.

Portland's creative class are a drain on the psyche of this great city. They're like a rabbit population grown out of control. A small number of them are awesome, but without a predator to kill them, they're running rampant and eating all the grass.
Posted by Graham on April 21, 2009 at 11:37 PM · Report
2
The Memorial Coliseum 'saving' in concept is great, but the 'saving' must be REALLY saving it, saving the integrity of our best international style modern building (along with the Commonwealth Building). As opposed to calling it 'saved' and then ruining it later on. This could well still happen and I fear it will. People who understand what makes this building special, and other community members, should be brought on in a transparent public process by the City to help define 'saved' and then help the City bring their beautiful Memorial Coliseum back to being vibrant and beautiful. It's the right thing to do for our veterans, and for our City. .
Posted by Stuart Emmons on April 22, 2009 at 4:13 AM · Report
3
wow Graham. Got a prejudice for the stinkers? I thought crashing parties was what America was all about.


Tri-met is fitting into this picture now, at least on this blog, in a new awkward way. Wouldn't you say that most Portlanders would vote to have Tri-met still be a part of this picture on redevelopment?
Posted by Lt. Billiam Esquire III on April 22, 2009 at 5:40 AM · Report
4
Hi Graham,

I'm so sorry to read that you're not feeling well again. Aren't you taking your prescription? The doctor had hoped you'd be feeling sane again by this time, so it's sad to see you've had one of your psycho flare-ups.

As soon as you want to come off the ledge of that building, we'd be happy to walk you through the real story about the Rose Quarter, Memorial Coliseum, the city's architects, and how this process is actually working.

We're gonna get you a jacket where you can move your arms again real soon.
Posted by Brian Libby on April 22, 2009 at 8:10 AM · Report
5
Until a memorial has names on it of Oregon veterans who died since Korea its pathetic. It's also a smoking section for a filthy building that has long lived its usefulness. How were the 30ish people that rallied to save this jewell of a building. Considering how special its supposed to be I thought it would pull together more than 30 people.

Oh well...I guess the 14 years since this building went vacant haven't been enough time. Fine...lets put another 14 years into redeveloping it.
Posted by BlackedOut on April 22, 2009 at 8:19 AM · Report
6
Brian Libby, you are a douche. My comment had nothing to do with your ugly-ass coloseum or a stupid process that the city is or is not implementing in order to raze a building that has out-lived its usefulness. Nay, instead I was commenting on smirk's skills as a writer.

But really you're a single issue writer with no perspective on anything that isn't in your own field of study. Going through your comment history you've got some really outlandish things you seem to believe, don't know where you get your ideas... but lay off the laudanum.
Posted by Graham on April 22, 2009 at 8:21 AM · Report
7
I think the real problem here is:
"the design of the Rose Quarter projects have been given to large corporations instead of finding local talent to do the job"
How in the frig is a city that supposedly lives by the credo "Buy Local" gonna go for this shit?
Posted by Abusive on April 22, 2009 at 8:59 AM · Report
8
Thank you Abusive for bringing the conversation back to the important topic at hand. Brian, you have said a lot of good things but personal attacks take away from that.
Posted by Paul Cone on April 22, 2009 at 9:12 AM · Report
9
FYI, the Buckaroos were a professional hockey team in the old Western Hockey League. The league folded after the 73-74 season, and the Buckaroos played one more season in a different league before folding. The Winter Hawks were the first US team in the (junior, non-pro) Western Canada Hockey League, moving from Edmonton to Portland for the 75-76 season. The WCHL was later renamed the Western Hockey League, just to add to the confusion.

Portland hockey history goes back to the first US team to contend for the Stanley Cup, when the Portland Rosebuds lost the cup to Montreal in 1916.
Posted by Steve R. on April 22, 2009 at 9:44 AM · Report
10
From what I have read, one of the reasons the MC isn't used as much as the RQ is because Paul Allens group owns both of them and he pays Portland more of a cut for events held in the MC than the RQ. Until this is addressed, he will always have more events in the RQ. He's not stupid, you know. By the way, today is Ducknesday. Where are the duck posts? Man, I love you, Howard. Thank you for your time.
Posted by ujfoyt on April 22, 2009 at 9:50 AM · Report
11
I wonder if it would help save the coliseum if Matt's wife dressed up in a french maid outfit and performed CPR on it?
Posted by Demondog on April 22, 2009 at 10:01 AM · Report
12
Yes the MC gives PDX more of a cut than the RG and Allen's group gets to run the Rose Quarter. The main reason it isn't used more is because the concourses are too small, the plumbing is screwed up and it backs up especially when in heavy use (like a concert), the roof leaks, the HVAC needs to be replaced and another myriad of reasons. Also nobody wants to pay $50 to see the fucking Jonas Brothers in a place that smells like a mixture of urine and hockey players. Anyone that knows hockey players knows the special sort of scent they create when they sweat. I don't know how they create that but they do...and its gross.
Posted by BlackedOut on April 22, 2009 at 10:06 AM · Report
13
So, to sum up the 'demonstrators':

"It wasn't one of us that got the job to design the new area. It was someone else. We're going to blame the council for that (even though we know it wasn't their decision). Why aren't they doing what I want them to do, and paying me to help them do it?"

Maybe if they stopped whinging and got on with devising a viable alternative plan for the area (even a bare-bones plan at this stage, to be fleshed out later), they might be worth listening to. But they'd rather leave the whole area in the sorry state it's in at the moment.
Posted by Stu on April 22, 2009 at 10:17 AM · Report
14
Wow, Graham. Ever since you've changed your avatar, you seem to have become a little unhinged. I love it. Any connection?
Posted by jake on April 22, 2009 at 3:22 PM · Report
15
So 30 people show up at a rally to save the MC and 300 plus show up at a rally to remodel PGE Park for MLS and move the Beavers to the MC site and which one does the Merc cover?
Posted by Finnegan on April 22, 2009 at 4:49 PM · Report
16
Perhaps they, like the rest of us, are sick of hearing you spoiled brats cry like babies.
Posted by WTF Chuck on April 22, 2009 at 8:05 PM · Report

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