Architecture is Awesome #23: Walls

“Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall.” Louis Kahn.

(Photo of the National Parliament House of Bangladesh by Rossi101 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is another in my series of posts inspired by 1000 Awesome Things, the Webby Award winning blog written by Neil Pasricha. The series is my meditation on the awesome reasons why I was and continue to be attracted to the art of architecture. 

Walls keep us safe from dangers or threats and help shelter us from the elements. Along with the roof, walls give form to buildings. They enclose and make rooms useful. They secure our privacy and shape our behavior. Since ancient times, walls have kept out others we fear or find undesirable (examples of such barriers include the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in the UK, and the former guy’s notorious southern border wall), or have enforced control within (for example, inside the perimeter of a penitentiary or between the separated parts of Cold War-era Berlin). The idea and realization of walls can be architectural, functional, historical, and political.

Though primarily intended to keep the exterior at bay, walls can draw exterior space in or interior space out.

Some walls, being load-bearing, support the roof and any floors above the outside grade. Many of these walls are massive, both literally in the sense of the materials from which they are built and as we perceive them (as they may be visually imposing and solid). Others rely on framing—posts, beams, studs, and the like—to transfer loads to the foundation. Framed walls permit large openings, such as porticos, doors, or windows. Framed walls can be mutable; think of the sliding paper shoji screens of traditional sukiya-zukuri style Japanese houses. Twentieth-century technology permitted walls entirely of glass—transparent, translucent, or mirrored—the apotheosis of a dematerialized, incorporeal architecture envisioned by the Modernists.

John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes, University of Oregon (my photo)

You can be on one side or the other of a wall. You can rest against or move alongside it, experience its aural and haptic properties, and appreciate its design and detailing. If a door is available, you can pass through a wall, its presence marking a transition between two states of being. In existential terms, that moment is of expressive importance, which is why architects have often lavished so much attention to the matter of walls and the openings in them. 

Wall House #2

(Photo by Wenkbrauwalbatros, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)\

John Hejduk (1929-2000) is one architect who regarded the wall as the original architectural device, one that figured prominently is his poetic distillation of architecture’s first principles. “The wall is a neutral condition,” he said. “It is the greatest moment of repose, and at the same time the greatest tension. It is a moment of passage. The wall heightens that sense of passage, and by the same token, its thinness heightens the sense of it being just a momentary condition . . . what I call the moment of the present." Hejduk’s design for Wall House #2, built posthumously in Groningen, the Netherlands, is an essay on the nature of the wall. In this design, the two-dimensional plane at once both divides—because one must pass through it on leaving or entering a room—and unifies the disparate functional spaces.

West façade of St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice (photo by Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Walls are backdrops in front of which we play out our daily lives. They are canvases, desirous for embellishment. The walls inside our homes collect photos, paintings, or posters that remind us of fond memories and the people we know and knew. At the scale of the city, the architectonics of prominent walls—their breadth, height, materiality, detailing, the pattern of openings, and the occasional murals rendered upon them—considerably impact our perception of the places in which they occur. They line the streets and shape the outdoor rooms that comprise our shared public realm. 

Walls are fundamental components of architecture, with correlations between their form and meaning. On the one hand, their construction must follow sets of rules (to ensure they perform as intended). On the other, we “read” walls because we are conditioned to look for how their constituent parts combine and interact to produce meaningful totalities. Accordingly, there is so much about their design and construction that is essential to the art and science of architecture. Walls are vital and AWESOME expressions of how we build and relate to the world around us. 

Next Architecture is Awesome: #24 The Act of Building

Compensatory Response Families

Bryant Park, New York (my photo)

Once again, my weekend obligations preclude me from dedicating time to an original blog post. Thankfully, sharing an excerpt from Bill Kleinsasser’s self-published textbook SYNTHESIS remains a reliable alternative, one I’m always happy to exercise when I’ve got too much on my plate.

With characteristic pithiness in the following excerpt from the 1981 edition of SYNTHESIS, Bill catalogued some of the negative traits found among impoverished built environments and specified corresponding design strategies we can employ to avoid the shortcomings of such places and spaces. He referred to these strategies as compensatory response families. I have linked other posts from my SYNTHESIS series that expand upon each of these families; check them out if you haven’t done so previously.

Compensatory Response Families

Dilemma: Missing essentials (needed facilities and relationships among facilities are simply not present).

• Response: Inclusive analysis of “life space” requirements (identification of needed facilities, needed groupings, critical distances, needed density or facilities, many scales).

Dilemma: Lack of choice (the feeling that we have little or no opportunity to realize, use, and enjoy diversity and variation in the built-environment).

• Response: Consolidation of facilities (density), attention to spatial variation for its own sake, establishment of changeability (for future adjusting).

Dilemma: Lack of openness (the feeling that a place offers little opportunity for spontaneous, innovative use.

• Response: Establishment of “precise-generality,” “undesignated-ness,” diversity.

Dilemma: Fear and confusion about what we are getting into (as brought on by overwhelming size of buildings, disorientation, too-sudden changes, too much at once, etc.).

• Response: Attention to considerations of scale (viewpoints of users, character of surroundings, user’s previous experience), establishment of previews and transitions, establishment of appropriate organizational structure.

Dilemma: Lack of control over the places we use (little or no chance to imprint, change, adjust, choose).

• Response: Establishment of imprintable and changeable parts, establishment of appropriate spatial variety.

Dilemma: Loneliness (the feeling that we cannot make adequate contact with others, the feeling that a place is uninviting).

• Response: Establishment of supports for interaction.

Dilemma: Unwanted exposure (the feeling that we are unable to withdraw when we wish to do so . . . or that the places we may withdraw to are unsatisfactory).

• Response: Establishment of supports for retreat and withdrawal.

Dilemma: Disconnection from other experience (the feeling of unreality).

• Response: Establishment of physical and historical continuity (making places a part of what exists rather than separated from).

Dilemma: Lack of sensory stimulation and richness (the feeling that our surroundings are bleak, boring, sterile, impersonal).

• Response: Establishment of appropriate complexity, imprintability/changeability, multi-functioning parts, many levels of meaning.

Dilemma: The feeling that a built place (or the built environment generally) is not the best we can do . . . not inspiring.

• Response: Eloquence in regard to realization of all the above responses. Poetic impact.

WK / 1977

Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet: H

 

The Hult Center for the Performing Arts (photo by Cacophony via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1692766)

 

This is the next in my Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet series of blog posts, the focus of each being a landmark building here in Eugene. Many of these will be familiar to most who live here but there are likely to be a few buildings that are less so. My selection criteria for each will be threefold: 

1. The building must be of architectural interest, local importance, or historically significant.
2. The building must be extant so you or I can visit it in person. 
3. Each building’s name will begin with a particular letter of the alphabet, and I must select one (and only one) for each of the twenty-six letters. This is easier said than done for some letters, whereas for other characters there is a surfeit of worthy candidates (so I’ll be discriminating and explain my choice in those instances). 

This week’s selection begins with the letter H, for which my choice is the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.

The Hult Center

The City of Eugene envisioned the Hult Center for the Performing Arts as part of a larger urban renewal development that also included a Hilton Hotel next door (now The Graduate hotel), a conference center, and a 515-car parking garage. Built using funds approved by voters in 1978, the cost of construction for the entire project was $51.8 million. In retrospect, this must have seemed a remarkably ambitious sum (in today’s dollars, more than $173 million) for what was then (and remains today) a relatively small community. In realizing the project, Eugene was punching well above its weight.  

Without question, the Hult Center has more than repaid Eugene’s investment. The Center provides a "home field" for its resident companies, which include the Eugene Ballet, Ballet Fantastique, the Eugene Concert Choir, and the Eugene Symphony. It comfortably accommodates more than 700 events each year, including shows from across the entire spectrum of the performing arts by world-class and locally grown talent, lectures by some of the leading thinkers of our time, high school graduation ceremonies, and more. These events draw visitors to downtown Eugene, contributing to the vibrancy of our city core. The economic spin-offs include the multiplier effects of entertainment spending, job creation, and expansion of the tax base. 

Less tangible but equally significant has been the Center’s role in boosting Eugene’s civic pride. The Hult Center thrives as the city’s premier performance venue (that is, when not necessarily limited by pandemic mandates). It consistently ranks among Eugene’s top-rated tourist attractions. Today, almost forty years since it first opened, the technical sophistication of its design continues to garner accolades from performers and audience-members alike, many of whom still regard it as “modern” and “state-of-the-art.”  

Unsurprisingly, the commission to design a major performance arts hub for Eugene attracted a who’s who of architects from around the country. Twenty-seven firms formally vied for the opportunity to design the Hult Center. Ultimately, the Eugene City Council approved selection of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA) (2), a New York firm that had by the late 1970s established a reputation for attention-grabbing and successful concert halls.(3) Lutes/Sanetel/Architects (the predecessor firm to my office, Robertson/Sherwood/Architects) served as the affiliated local firm for the project. HHPA’s architect responsible for construction contract administration was the late Jerry McDonnell, who eventually settled in Eugene with his family and founded Brockmeyer McDonnell Architects (now GMA Architects). 

During its heyday, architecture critics regarded the partnership of Hugh Hardy, Malcom Holzman, and Norman Pfeiffer as among the design vanguard that sought to enrich contemporary architecture through a more inclusive and eclectic architectural approach. For HHPA, this often translated to jarring juxtapositions of multiple styles in a single project. Paul Goldberger described the firm’s work as “rather brash, often irreverent, more a collage of interesting elements than a pure statement.” Indeed, the best of HHPA’s work exemplified this freewheeling mindset, often combining banal or kitschy elements in a pop art manner. The Hult Center is no exception, as HHPA playfully mixed allusions to neo-Baroque precedents in the 2,448-seat Silva Concert Hall with abstract references to Eugene’s silviculture and geography (the lobby) and the matter-of-fact industrial aesthetic of the intimate, 496-seat Soreng Theater. 

Lobby (this and the following two images from the Hult Center website) 

It’s hard to adequately describe one’s feelings upon entering the Silva Concert Hall for the first time (as I did during a behind-the-scenes construction tour as the facility’s completion neared in 1982). It is a truly remarkable space, at once reminiscent of a 19th century opera house and yet shockingly original. The hall’s tour de force is its ceiling, which looks like nothing if not an inverted peach basket of Brobdingnagian proportions. The ceiling consists of dozens of convex arcs with plaster centers and wire mesh borders that either absorb or reflect sound depending upon their position within the hall. The panels were the handiwork of the Benny Bartel Company; Benny's son and my good friend Gary Bartel served as the project manager, overseeing their execution. According to Gary, though many of the panels may appear to be of equal size and shape, each one proved to be unique, with laborious adjustments required in the field to facilitate their fitting and installation.  

The Silva Concert Hall 

The Soreng Theater

Another aspect of the Hult Center that has always been a source of delight are the many works of art the City commissioned for the project. Though not truly integrated with the architecture, the pieces (many crafted by Eugene-area artists) are invariably inspired, whimsical, and often only found serendipitously. Their contribution to the experience of attending an event in the facility is not inconsiderable. 

Hult Center viewed from Sixth Avenue (Google Street View)

When confronted by tight budgets, HHPA often resorted to concentrating resources on the auditoriums and other principal interiors, relegating the buildings’ exteriors to the status of “dumb” containers. Though strategic and understandable, in the instance of the Hult Center this choice—compounded by the need to acoustically isolate the performance halls from noise outside—largely resulted in the building resembling a concrete bunker. This is even true on the building’s primary entrance side, which additionally suffers the indignity of being depressed in elevation relative to the adjoining public sidewalk along Sixth Avenue and isolated from it by a moat of a drop-off lane. The net effect is an impoverished streetscape in the immediate vicinity of the building; not exactly what urbanists imagine for a cultural magnet in the heart of the city.

Despite its shortcomings as a work of urban design, the Hult Center for the Performing Arts is very much a landmark building by virtue of its function and importance to the community. It is likely to remain a focal point of Eugene’s mainstream cultural scene for many, many years to come.       

(1)  HHPA disbanded in August 2004; each of the partners subsequently established his own successor firm.

(2)  Two earlier HHPA projects—Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis (1974) and the Boettcher Concert Hall in Denver (1978)—are among the Hult Center’s clearest progenitors. Like the Hult Center, both projects enclose superb auditorium spaces within unremarkable containers, relying upon illumination of activities and color within at night for animation.

 

Nostalgia

The Glenwood Restaurant (Google Street View screen capture)

Our sentimentality for the past, particularly for times with happy personal associations, tends to increase as we grow older. We fondly remember relationships, places, and significant experiences, reflecting upon how they shaped us and provided our lives with meaning. It’s not surprising then that we lament the loss of things we associate with those happy moments. We long for the “good old days,” times when life somehow seemed more joyful. Our memories are part of our identity, reminding us of who we have been. They connect us with those we shared our lives with. They become bittersweet when we realize there’s no going back. Such is the paradox of life.

I was saddened this past week when I learned the Glenwood Restaurant on Alder Street near the University of Oregon campus (and the 7-Eleven convenience store next door—no great loss from an urban design perspective) will be razed to make way for the construction of yet another massive student-oriented housing project. “Say it isn’t so,” was my first thought. The Glenwood (and the cozy old house it has occupied for the past 43 years) has been a fixture of the West University neighborhood ever since I first arrived in Eugene. Its scale, appearance, and connections to specific events in my life are indelibly mapped in my mind’s image of the area.

Though I can’t count myself as a truly devoted patron, it hasn’t been uncommon for me to occasionally enjoy one of the hearty plates from the Glenwood's breakfast and brunch menu. Without a doubt, a huge part of the restaurant’s appeal are the unique quirks of occupying an amiably repurposed little building. Corporate chain restaurants are fine when you’re looking for predictable prices and food quality, but their soulless ubiquity and uniformity are the reasons why they rarely figure prominently in our mental maps. A one-of-a-kind eatery like the campus Glenwood contributes legibility to our perception of the urban environment in a way a chain restaurant (say an Applebee’s or Panera Bread franchise) cannot.

Likewise, another 12-story, student apartment block on the landscape will contribute less to the imageability of the neighborhood in the mind’s eye of many. Despite their bulk, I suspect most people will ultimately perceive the recent crop of mega-sized, luxury student housing projects as background elements, part of the fabric from which our mental maps are formed as opposed to being memorable landmarks in their own right. The key to the success of any new development will thus be the degree to which it provides us with accommodating backdrops or stages against or upon which the memorable moments of our lives are played out.

The loss of the Glenwood does beg the question: What is sustaining the proliferation of all these new amenity-laden luxury student housing projects? With so many built in recent years or currently under construction in Eugene, surely the demand is about to be filled, right? The fact is it has yet to be sated. There are several reasons why this is so.

Notwithstanding 2020’s pandemic-induced drop, enrollment at the University of Oregon has steadily increased over the years. Current enrollment tops 22,000, of which more than 18,000 are undergraduate students (the student body population when I was in school four decades ago was around 13,000). The UO says it received nearly 33,000 applications for fall 2021 admission, so the university can afford to be choosy. While providing opportunities for in-state students is a mandate, international and out-of-state students who pay full fare are attractive targets as their attendance offsets reduced state support for higher education.

International and out-of-state students tend to come from wealthier families more capable of paying the expensive rents associated with newer buildings. To compete for their dollars, developers are providing private bedrooms and bathrooms, fitness centers, fast wi-fi, on-site entertainment, secure parking, and other de rigueur amenities, all wrapped in the trappings of high-end packages. Generally, affluent parents want a higher level of student living for their children than they and past generations endured.

Student rentals are attractive because landlords can charge more per square foot than they can for other sectors of the residential market. And if the market dictates, they can raise rents annually because students typically sign one-year leases.

Moreover, much of the off-campus housing stock is aging. Owners are reluctant to invest in maintaining their deteriorating facilities, or simply cannot afford to compete with the new projects. The upshot is these older properties are liabilities, while the land they sit upon is increasingly valuable. This creates pressures to redevelop in an effort to maximize that value and generate positive revenue streams for investors.

The bottom line is the student housing market is one of the most profitable segments of real estate development, one that market analysts suggest remains underserved.

A considerable downside of the high-priced new developments is how they further exacerbate the socioeconomic divide between the wealthy and the less well-to-do. Increasingly, they will segregate rich students from their poorer classmates, while pushing up other off-campus rents. This trend is counter to our community’s goals for enhancing equity, diversity, and inclusion.

I get why the Glenwood’s owner, Jacqui Willey, sold her restaurant. As she said when speaking with Eugene Weekly, the challenges of doing business at the location have grown over the years, compounded by the stresses of COVID-19 closures and restrictions. She wants to retire, and the campus location was a valuable part of her retirement portfolio. I would almost certainly have done the same if I was in her position. Conversely, the property is worth a lot to the California developer who bought it from her. Putting myself in the developer’s shoes, I would have likewise recognized the site’s potential and the logic of replacing the Glenwood with a lucrative new student apartment building.

This doesn’t make the news of the Glenwood’s demise easy to accept. Am I simply being nostalgic? Perhaps. Nostalgia for fond memories or familiar things we have lost or are about to lose is natural. Acknowledging that nostalgia and how it relates to the present can help us better understand the current condition, who we are, and what we want to be. We shouldn’t attempt to replicate the Glenwood, even in spirit. Its time is now done. Instead, we can look forward to remembering it with affection. The value of reminiscing is its ability to strengthen our sense of identity, help us move forward with optimism, and provide inspiration.