As a young architect in the late 1970s, I was proud to be a member of the design team working directly with Harry Cobb of I.M. Pei & Partners on the Payson addition to the Portland Museum of Art, a design largely based on the preservation and enhancement of historic buildings on the site.
I fully support the idea of museum’s expansion, but not as currently proposed. The demolition of the former Chamber of Commerce Building (former Children’s Museum) is unnecessary.
After 14 years at the Pei firm, I entered the real estate business, leading the planning and implementation of several large urban projects. These complicated sites included historic structures, resulting in challenging but ultimately solvable preservation issues.
I subsequently served as president of the Los Angeles Conservancy, by membership the largest local preservation entity in the country. This three-part background – architecture, development and preservation – has convinced me that solutions exist for even the most challenging conflicts these endeavors may face. I believe that this is relevant to the Portland Museum of Art’s proposed expansion.
The former Chamber of Commerce building, 142 Free Street, is an historic building that has graced Portland for almost 100 years. The PMA leadership has framed the expansion argument as follows: we need adjacent land for expansion and therefore must demolish 142 Free Street. Without this land, expansion is impossible, and the public will reap none of the enormous community benefits that have been advertised.
This either/or proposition is just plain wrong.
The 142 Free Street site is 9,800 square feet in size. The Portland Museum of Art has jammed its proposed 60,000-square-foot expansion into this tight site, resulting in a costly five-story structure that dwarfs its historic neighbors. The PMA proposes a glassy new entry on Free Street, permanently closing off the Congress Square entry to the Payson Building – ironically just as the City of Portland is pursuing an expensive re-design of Congress Square that will only enhance the Payson entrance.
All of this, the PMA says, is necessary for its expansion. This position is misleading.
In 2006, the museum purchased the adjacent 38,000-square-foot YWCA site in order to “secure the museum’s future options and flexibility,” to quote the PMA website. Now a parking lot and sparsely planted open space that is four times the size of the 142 Free Street property, the YWCA site could easily accommodate expansion with great visibility, its own entrance, connection to the existing museum buildings and sufficient land area to yield a cost-effective solution better scaled to the surrounding buildings.
The PMA has rejected use of the YWCA site, claiming that it does not provide a good connection to the Payson Building. I dispute this conclusion; I believe that a motivated architect could create a compelling solution.
But even if the museum is correct in this, there is yet another alternative: demolish the administration wing of the original Payson Building, which is identical in size to 142 Free Street. This would provide an expansion site central to the entire museum complex and would facilitate connection to all museum components, while enabling future expansion to the YWCA site and maintaining the current museum entry fronting on Congress Square. 142 Free Street could house PMA administrative functions.
As one who worked on the original design, I would prefer that the Payson Building remain intact. With that said, it is far better to replace a portion of it than to destroy 142 Free Street.
Portland’s unique historic fabric need not be sacrificed in order to facilitate growth. The two are not mutually exclusive, despite the PMA’s unfortunate framing of the issue. A win-win outcome can be achieved if pursued in good faith.
The museum’s claim that its expansion is dependent on the destruction of 142 Free Street is shortsighted and misguided. This claim deserves to be forcefully challenged and soundly rejected.
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