When Letters Become Landmarks

Amsterdam’s 2005 ‘I amsterdam’ installation, often cited as the earliest widely recognized example of the modern city‑name wordmark (photo by Guilhem Vellut from Annecy, France, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons).

 
Cities around the world have embraced a simple, highly legible device: spelling out their names in large, sculptural letters. These wordmarks have become fixtures of contemporary urban branding—instantly recognizable, endlessly photographed, and often adopted as informal gathering points. I’ve encountered them in places as different as Nanaimo and Ottawa, each using typography to project identity in a direct, almost cheerful way.
 
Amsterdam’s “I amsterdam” installation, introduced in 2005, is generally regarded as the earliest widely recognized example of the contemporary city-name wordmark. Its placement in front of the Rijksmuseum helped propel the device into global visibility, and many of the installations that followed, from Toronto to Buenos Aires, trace their lineage, implicitly or explicitly, to the Amsterdam wordmark.(1)
 
Notably, many of this country’s most symbolically loaded cities—New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia—have never adopted large civic wordmarks, relying instead on existing architectural icons to carry their identity. By contrast, some cities have experimented with the typology in design-forward ways. Vancouver, Canada, introduced temporary and illuminated “VANCOUVER” installations that proved popular enough to prompt council approval for a permanent waterfront version.(2) That uneven adoption underscores that a wordmark is never a neutral gesture; it reflects a city’s comfort with overt branding and its appetite for a certain kind of civic expression.

Nanaimo, British Columbia wordmark (my photo).

 
Their appeal is obvious. A city-name wordmark is participatory, democratic, and immediately understood. It offers a moment of civic pride and a ready-made backdrop for visitors. But the very qualities that make these installations successful have also made them ubiquitous. They risk becoming a global shorthand for Instagram bait: instantly photogenic, instantly shareable, and instantly interchangeable.
 
Despite their ubiquity, there’s surprisingly little critical writing about these installations as a global phenomenon. Most commentary focuses on individual signs or on municipal branding more broadly, but few observers have examined the wordmark itself as an urban placemaker, with respect to its appeal, its limitations, or its implications for civic space. That gap makes me curious about how a city like Eugene might interpret the device, and whether it can be adapted in a way that feels authentic rather than imitative.
 
I argued last year that the North Butterfly Lot needs a gesture capable of reinforcing the Park Blocks’ spatial logic, one that contributes to their civic presence. Since then, the City of Eugene selected Paradigm Properties through a public RFP process to undertake the parcel’s redevelopment. The design team, led by Dustrud Architecture (with Dougherty Landscape Architects and Michael Fifield contributing urban design guidance) has initiated design work. I’ve discussed the developing scheme with both, as well as participated in Mayor Kaarin Knudson’s design review group for the project. The City’s process to date has emphasized transparency and public engagement rather than imposing any architectural direction upon Paradigm, especially with respect to questions of scale, expression, or the appropriateness of strongly iconic gestures.
 
It’s worth remembering that the North Butterfly Lot has never properly functioned as a spatial terminus for the Park Blocks. Earlier civic buildings, now razed, primarily fronted on 8th Avenue, leaving the northern quarter block as an unresolved edge in the figure-ground. The site isn’t missing something it once had; it simply never received a gesture that acknowledges its role as the Park Blocks’ northern threshold.

 

"OTTAWA" sign in the city's ByWard Market District (my photo).

That brings me back to those city-name installations. I’m wary of their ubiquity. I’m wary of their tendency toward cliché. And yet, I find myself wondering whether the underlying idea—typography as spatial marker, a wordmark as civic datum—might hold potential here if approached with restraint and specificity. Not a photo prop, not a branding exercise, but a modest, materially grounded gesture that participates in the Park Blocks’ geometry and registers at pedestrian scale.(3)
 
Eugene doesn’t need a copy of what other cities have done. But it might benefit from a contemporary civic wordmark, or some related typographic gesture, if it can be conceived as an architectural element rather than a marketing device. Something that completes the Park Blocks’ sequence, acknowledges the city’s identity without shouting it, and feels inevitable rather than imported.
 
I’m not certain what that gesture should be. But I’m increasingly convinced that the question is worth asking. If Eugene can reinterpret the global wordmark phenomenon in a way that aligns with its modest, grounded, and quietly expressive temperament, then perhaps even this ubiquitous device could find a meaningful place at the northern edge of the Park Blocks.

 
(1)  The City of Amsterdam ultimately removed the original installation from the Museumplein in 2018 amid concerns about overtourism, a reminder that even the typology’s OG has grappled with the unintended consequences of its own success.
 
(2)  The City of Vancouver has leaned into temporary and illuminated "VANCOUVER" signs (seasonal installations near Canada Place since 2023–2024), which proved hugely popular and led to council approval in 2025 for a permanent, illuminated large-letter sign on the waterfront promenade, timed for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It's positioned as a public art/placemaking piece with tourist appeal, backed by tourism partners, and will incorporate First Nations design input. 

     

     (3)  This idea is not my own: In a March 27, 2025 letter to the Eugene Weekly, William Sullivan called for a park-focused design competition, suggesting features that include a giant “EUGENE” sculpture. 

 

A Lost Oregon Colossus

The Forestry Building, circa 1905 (all images public domain)
 

I recently came across photographs of a Portland structure I hadn’t encountered before: the Forestry Building from the 1905 Lewis & Clark Centennial Exposition. Although I had previously heard of the fair, I was not familiar with its architecture. The images of the massive building immediately impressed me.

The Forestry Building measured 206 by 102 feet and centered around a central nave of fifty-two old-growth fir trunks, each about six feet in diameter. Crews selected and matched the logs individually, handling them in ways that preserved their bark. All told, builders used roughly a million board feet of timber. The result was a monumental timber hall that reflected the confidence and priorities of Oregon’s early logging era. Contemporary accounts often described it as the “world’s largest log cabin,” though later comparisons (e.g., Old Faithful Inn) challenge that superlative.

A souvenir postcard image of the Forestry Building from the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition.

Construction of the Forestry Building, 1904.

The Forestry Building as it appeared in 1956.

The colossal central "nave."

Following the conclusion of the exposition, the city retained the building and used it as a museum and forestry hall to house logging and lumbering exhibits. Maintenance proved difficult. Decay, insect damage, and repeated fire scares accumulated over the decades, and by the 1940s, the building faced possible demolition. A restoration effort in the 1950s stabilized it. That process underscored how impossible it would be to replicate its materials or methods from scratch.

The Forestry Building, engulfed in flames, August 17, 1964.

In August 1964, faulty electrical wiring started a fire that entirely destroyed the building within hours. The intensity of the radiated heat was enough to blow out the facing windows of the nearby Montgomery Park Building. Nothing inside the Forestry Building survived. The loss removed one of the last physical links to the state’s early timber identity.

In response, civic and industry leaders established the Western Forestry Center—now the World Forestry Center—building a new facility in Washington Park to continue the educational mission. It occupies a similar footprint but did not attempt to replicate the original structure.

The historical information and images in this post come from several sources, including the Pacific Coast Architectural Database and Offbeat Oregon. Encountering the Forestry Building through their accounts was a surprise, a reminder that even in a region I think I know well, significant pieces of its architectural past can still surface unexpectedly.

The Clarity and Ambition of 2001: A Space Odyssey

Theatrical release poster.

A film that taught me about the potential of disciplined artistry is 2001: A Space Odyssey, a rare work marked by clarity and unprecedented craftsmanship. It was my introduction to the films of its director, Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999). Today, 2001 serves as a touchstone, a reference point against which I’ve measured the ambitions of other filmmakers and other creators, including architects. 

I first saw 2001 upon its initial theatrical release in 1968, at age nine, sitting beside my father.(1) I found it slow, strange, and interrupted by an intermission I was grateful for. I didn’t understand the film at the time, but I now find it almost startlingly clear. What once felt ponderous and opaque now seems spare and incisive. Its simplicity is part of its power. 

This lucidity stems largely from Kubrick’s collaboration with science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008). Clarke brought scientific precision and philosophical directness; Kubrick contributed visual imagination and a readiness to excise anything superfluous. Together, they created a work neither a novelist nor a filmmaker could have achieved alone. The film’s confidence—its trust in the viewer to follow without hand-holding—arises from that partnership. 

The cinematic landscape of the 1960s is easy to forget now. Most science fiction films of the era were earnest but visually limited—heavy on rubber suits, painted backdrops, and theatrical staging. They had their charms, but they looked like products of their budgets and time. 2001 appeared almost alien by comparison: clean, convincing, and deliberate in its pacing. Its realism and discipline were unusual then, and they remain striking today. 

The Monolith as first seen in the Dawn of Man sequence.

I’ve watched 2001 more times than I can count, and I’ve also enjoyed several of Kubrick’s other films—Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket. Each has a quality I can only describe as “Kubrick-esque,” though defining that term precisely is difficult. It has to do with the way he framed shots, the deliberate pacing, and the sense that the viewer is a bystander within each scene. You observe without being pushed toward a particular emotion. The camera held its ground and allowed the world to unfold.

For all their scale, Kubrick's films are scrupulous. Nothing is wasted. He explained only what he had to. 2001 is like a structure you inhabit rather than a story someone recounts. To many, it seems enigmatic; to me, it is forthright. Such measured composure feels increasingly rare. 

Astronaut Frank Poole's body floats lifeless in space.

One aspect of 2001 that continues to draw me in is its scope. “Epic” comes to mind, though not in the conventional sense of spectacle. Kubrick’s epic quality emerges from stretching time and allowing vastness—of space, history, human aspiration—to linger on screen. The film moves from prehistoric Earth to the cosmos with calm assurance. I sense a similar breadth in Barry Lyndon and even Full Metal Jacket: the story as part of a larger world, shown without haste or apology. 

2001 attempts something most films wouldn’t dare: depicting human evolution, cosmic mystery, and the limits of understanding without overt explanation. To some, this renders it obscure; to me, it distills the work to essentials. Clarke’s influence shapes its architecture—the leap across millennia, the serene acceptance of humanity’s smallness, the notion that evolution is wondrous yet indifferent. Clarke supplied the conceptual framework; Kubrick stripped away the safeguards. The result is mythic yet exacting. Once you settle into its rhythm, the narrative feels almost inevitable. The power lies in how little is said and yet how much is conveyed. 

The Star Child looking upon the Earth.

It’s natural to question whether admiration for an artist is misplaced. In Kubrick’s case, I’ve found nothing that disqualifies him in my eyes. He was private, intense, and demanding, but not cruel.(2) Stories of his perfectionism are real, though often exaggerated. He pushed actors and crews because he believed repeated takes eroded self-conscious performance, yielding more natural results. Some found it exhausting; others thrived. But there’s no evidence of the abuses that have tarnished other directors. By most accounts, he led a disciplined, ethical, and surprisingly ordinary life—devoted to family, uninterested in fame, loyal to a small circle. This knowledge doesn’t improve 2001, but it does ground my regard. 

Despite his stature as a prominent auteur, Kubrick never fully captured the broader cultural embrace accorded some of his contemporaries. His films are demanding—cerebral, unsentimental, and resistant to easy emotional release. He produced relatively few, labored slowly, and declined to explain his intentions. Critics often favor accessible artists; Kubrick withheld himself. 

Yet this may explain his enduring impact. His films avoid dating through facile answers or trendy flourishes. They remain open, enigmatic, and vital. 2001 stays with me, not as philosophy or guide, but as a work I admire for its clarity, ambition, and discipline. I don’t seek meaning in it, but I value how it embodies qualities I prize: patience, precision, and trust in the audience.

(1) I still remember how eager I was to see the real year 2001, should it turn out anything like the future the movie had envisioned. But I also remember realizing I'd be an unimaginable 42 years old in 2001. Downright ancient! Would I even live to see it?! 

(2) Some readers might disagree. It's true that Kubrick pushed Shelley Duvall (1949–2024) to her emotional and physical breaking point during filming of The Shining—resulting in exhaustion, hair loss, and near-constant distress—but she later spoke of him with respect, describing the experience as intensely challenging yet profoundly valuable.

Process Over Preciousness

Early in my studies at the University of Oregon, I learned a lesson I carried through my life in architecture. It came from Bill Kleinsasser, whose design studios were equal parts instruction, exploration, and gentle provocation. Bill believed deeply in process, in the idea that early design moves were not precious artifacts but simply commitments meant to evoke response.

One afternoon during a final review, a student presented her carefully crafted chipboard model. Without warning, Bill reached into his pocket, pulled out an X-Acto knife, and began cutting the model apart. He did so calmly, without malice or theatrics, as if he were demonstrating how to sharpen a pencil. The student was in tears. The rest of us were stunned.

But Bill’s point was neither cruel nor dismissive. He wanted us to understand that he regarded physical models as tools—temporary expressions of an idea, not something to cling to. Moreover, he used the act to reveal a design possibility the student hadn’t considered. By taking the model apart, he revealed an alternative way to approach the problem, one that was latent in the work but obscured by its completeness.

I don’t remember how that student ultimately felt about the moment. I only know that I’ve never forgotten it. And I’m not sure how I would have reacted if it had been my model on the table. But the lesson stayed with me: in design, as in much else, holding on too tightly to early ideas can keep you from discovering better ones, especially when letting go opens the door to something new.