Eugene City Hall (my photo)
As its appointment
with the wrecking ball nears, Eugene’s vacated, mid-century modern city hall finds
itself at the center of a fervent debate. Its principal protagonists have been
members of the local design community, and its primary forum has been the
opinion pages of The Register-Guard
and Eugene Weekly.
I
suspect many who have read the starkly contrasting points of view expressed in
the published comments are variously: a) baffled by the affection some of the writers have for a building many citizens consider ugly and uninviting; b)
exasperated by detractors who fail to share their appreciation of city hall’s
fashionable Mad Men-era design; or c)
confounded by the disparate opinions articulated by architects who
presumably spring from similar wells of education, experience, and perspective.
The
readers may also be puzzled by the eleventh hour appeals to save the
building. Didn’t this ship sail months ago? Ask Otto Poticha, FAIA, this question and his answer is a resolute
“NO.”
Otto,
like a dog with a bone, refuses to let go of the building. His
crusade to save it from demolition includes his proposal to locate the
new city hall on the city-owned quarter-block immediately to the south, across Eighth Avenue.
Doing so would spare the old city hall so that it could be “mothballed” pending
identification of an appropriate new use or set of uses. Others—including Chuck Bailey, AIA, Eric Hall, AIA, and Marston
Morgan, AIA—have rallied to Otto’s side, penning their own letters favoring
retention and resuscitation of the old building.
In the March 6 edition of Eugene Weekly, Jerry
Diethelm offered another intriguing idea: constructing a “new stately
City Hall along 7th Avenue on the north end of the North Park Block .
. . one that opens to the south on a market square for the Saturday Market and
Farmers Market and gives us the two-for-one of a restored park block and a City
Hall that is as good as we are.” Jerry’s proposal would likewise spare the
existing building, postponing the question of its ultimate fate until a later
day.
What is
it about our vacant and forlorn city hall that these seasoned architects
believe merits its preservation?
Eugene’s
city hall was the widely published winner of a prestigious architectural
design competition juried by a group of distinguished regional architects.
Completed in 1964, the design by Stafford,
Morin, and Longwood Architects is a noteworthy example of the mid-century modern
architectural movement and a valuable part of local civic history. Its informal
and democratic organization of a plaza surrounding a central council chamber is
decidedly anti-monumental, as befits our community.
While Eugene city staff cited the building's abysmal energy performance as one reason to move
on, it’s also true that the most sustainable version of city hall may be the
one that already exists. Advocates of city hall’s architecture can convincingly
enumerate the dollars the city could save by reusing the existing structure, as opposed to building a totally new facility.
They
also rightly argue that we are at risk of repeating the past in a bad way by
ignoring it. Thanks to well-intended but misguided urban renewal, Eugene now
laments the loss of much of its irreplaceable architectural heritage (such as the previous city hall and county courthouse). By
condemning city hall to the dustbin of history, are we making the same mistake?
On the opposite
side of the ledger, John Reynolds,
FAIA, pulled no punches in his July 29 letter to the R-G. For John, city hall is
an oppressive one-story box on stilts decorated with
heavy wooden slats, a product of a bygone era that set important buildings atop
pedestals, aloof from the surrounding sidewalks. He noted how city hall
confronts pedestrians with an “oversized fence looming over a vertical moat in
the form of a dark view into a sunken parking lot.” He acknowledged the pleasant
central courtyard, but correctly observed that it is neither visible nor
readily accessible from the street.
The old building is too
standoffish for how we think about government today and our "Great Street”
aspirations. Some argue the building should go not because we don’t care
about our past, but because it impedes our way to another, richer, older part
of our history—a return to a time before we abdicated so much of our urban landscape to the automobile.
I could blink my eyes and imagine
this same conversation happened around the Skinner Butte cross. It’s a valued
(some would say “revered”) part of our community’s history, but what it stands
for is not in step with our values and identity today.
I share John’s belief that
correcting city hall’s failings may be too great a challenge to realistically
overcome. I can’t imagine any way to ameliorate city
hall’s shortcomings without fundamentally erasing the very essence of the
original design that Otto and the others are so vociferously defending.
Eugene City Hall, High Street facade (my photo)
The
absence of unanimity among architects about city hall may be perplexing to
some, but the very fact it is so elusive is also why I find the debate and
discourse so encouraging. We may not all agree about what should be done with
the building, but that’s really beside the point.
Vigorous debate and discourse about what’s best for the built
environment are hallmarks of a healthy community. Cajoled by Otto, the Local Affairs Committee of the American
Institute of Architects – Southwestern Oregon Chapter recently convened to
tackle the subject of city hall. Otto
challenged us to exercise our know-how and take a stand. He wanted us to be
participants and not merely spectators.
The committee wrestled with
finding a common message about city hall to share publicly. The fact is
we’re a diverse group. You can’t paint architects with the same brush. Not all
of our views are commonly held, as our divergent opinions about city hall will
attest. Speaking out on controversial issues doesn’t always come naturally to
us. We struggled to arrive at an accord, ultimately settling upon acknowledging
our respect for history and the pain of removing a building that shaped our
civic life.
What we could agree upon is that we want city hall to again
thrive as Eugene’s civic heart. We want the new building to be an expression of
what matters to our community. We hope the design by Rowell Brokaw Architects
(with Miller Hull) will become something every Eugenean will point to proudly
as “our city hall.” We want it to reflect our aspirations for downtown. We also expect our new seat of civic government to be nothing less than
a model of sustainability, “radically accessible,” and welcoming. We want to
love our city hall again.
New City Hall rendering by Rowell Brokaw Architects (view from Eighth & Pearl)
This essay is the
committee’s contribution to the conversation. We’ve concluded
consensus—speaking with one voice—is neither necessary nor always desirable.
More important is publicly discussing issues and presenting the considered
views of AIA members who have lived and worked for many years here in Eugene
and Springfield. Our pledge is to continue to bring our expertise to bear upon
contentious topics associated with the built environment. If our ongoing dialogue
contributes positively to enlightened policy-making and greater public
appreciation for the value of good design, we’ll have done our job well.
