After my photo shoot at the Ace, I took to the city by foot and headed towards Pioneer Courthouse Square. I couldn’t have asked for better November weather in a city that averages sun only 1 day a week from October to March. Eeesh. I reckon Portlanders just appreciate the sun that much more.

Right, so a beautiful day. As soon as I saw and smelled these little buggies in a parking lot, I knew I had to grab lunch. Portland is known for its food carts – mostly independent mobile food sellers. Here there were 20-30 of them set up. The vermicelli from Pho Sam was terrific.

Portland has a proliferation of Food Carts and they seem to be growing in numbers and locations. Some might call them lunch wagons, taco trucks or even snack shacks, but whatever you call them, they are truly a phenomenon in Portland. Set up in parking lots, sidewalks, and even parks (sometimes in large groups and sometimes solo), one might nosh on a fresh tortilla Baja fish taco one day, a rib-sticking bowl of traditional goulash the next, have a coffee and pastry for an afternoon snack, and then take home a giant Indian combo box for dinner.

This fun directional sign at the Square, or the city’s “living room” gave mileage to the Zoo, Times Square, Mt. Hood, etc. And these little bronze guys welcomed passerby’s and watched as a giant evergreen was being prepped for a tree-lighting ceremony.

I continued southwest to recently completed Director Park, a new paved plaza over underground parking. Then further to the very pretty Multnomah County Central Library.While not quite the Seattle Public Library, this 1913 restored gem features 17 miles of linear bookshelf space.

Next, I hit up a few design shops. Canoe is a warm showroom of modern, designer home and office accessories. It’s a great place for gifts and they even carry Monocle magazine!

I especially liked these wool felt coasters by Parkhaus.

Just around the corner is Alder & Co., another design shop with women’s clothing.

North of here is the new Indigo commercial/residential high-rise. At the base is Cacao. I tried a simple cup of drinking chocolate. And it was heavenly. As you can see below, I unflatteringly spilled it all over the table. Tasty nonetheless.

The city is really something special. It has the street-level density of a New York, but without the height. You can see people everywhere: walking, talking, dining, shopping. It’s a vibrant and successful case for the American city. And it’s on the up.

I didn’t wait in line (which was at least three times as what is pictured above) for Voodoo Doughnut this time, but this place is a Portland legend. I saw one happy customer walk away with a FruitLoop topped donut for starters.

Portland is also huge on supporting local, independent businesses. Everyday Music featured a very large collection of CDs and vinyl records while Powell’s City of Books covers an entire city block, and then some. It’s a tourist destination and very comprehensive. The rooms are color coordinated, and by the sign below, you can infer that there are lots of rooms full of books. Twists and turns, stairwells and tunnels – this is truly a unique experience. And it seems to be working. The downtown Border’s is going out of business.

On the third floor was a pop-up graphic prints show. I wanted to buy one but the Christmas rush was on and the line was quite long.

Tree-lined streets, food vendor, bicycles, street performers…

I headed east towards the river to scout out the UO campus. It’s on Couch St. Though I was informed by locals that it is not pronounced like the potato…

One of two park corridors through the city, this one between the Pearl and Chinatown/Old Town districts featured a giant elephant statue.

In October 2002, a 12-foot bronze sculpture was installed between Burnside and Couch streets. A replica of a wine pitcher from the late Shang Dynasty (circa 1200-1100 BC), this sculpture is about sixteen times larger than the original. The young elephant standing peacefully on his father’s back symbolizes safe and prosperous offspring. The elaborate surface decoration features cloud-shaped curves and birds and animals from ancient Chinese mythology. The piece is titled Da Tung & Xi’an Bao Bao. Da Tung may be translated as “universal peace” or “large bronze.” Xi’an Bao Bao means “baby elephant.”
The sculpture was a gift to the city from Chinese businessman Huo Baozhu, whose foundry in Xi’an, China, is licensed by the national government to reproduce Chinese antiquities. Huo, who visited Portland a number of times, said he was motivated by a love of Chinese history and admiration for Portland.

The historic Union Station tower can been seen on Broadway.

The White Stag Block houses the University of Oregon, Portland campus. It has been recently renovated and houses several satellite departments including Journalism, Law, and the Architecture & Allied Arts.

My last stop for the evening with the Portland Saturday Market, just southeast of the UO campus on the Willamette River. A great pavilion protects the oldest vendors in this weekend sellers market. Everything from toys, honey and jewelry can be found here between the months of March and December.

Stay tuned for part 3!

Today I was browsing through a few old photos from a trip we took to Neuss during my study abroad in Germany. It is a relatively small city to the southwest of Düsseldorf and is home to the Hombroich Cultural Environment.

The Hombroich Cultural Environment is a synthesis of art, architecture and nature. The starting point of this, now continuously developing experiment of cultural, philosophical and artistic exchange, originated in the foundation of the Museum Insel Hombroich twenty years ago. Now the unique concept can be understood as a variable interaction between a growing and changing creative crowd – studios are rented out to artists, locations can be booked for events – and the interested visitor can become engaged by visiting one of the museums or participating in the community life.

Basically it is the huge acreage of land dedicated to the arts. Famous architects, artists and designers have landed commissions to be free in expression and ideas in this “neighborhood” of landmarks. From rural studios and gardens to Tadao Ando’s sleek Langen Foundation Museum, there is quite a bit to take in.

The experience you have walking through this foundation is one of complete serenity. It is a clean integration between outside and in; North-Rhine Westphalia landscape and art. Ando gives so much attention to detal: the picture-window views, human-sized concrete module system, mirroring on the reflecting pool, elegant wayfinding text.

See here for a video inside the Langen.

So the Mrs. and I took a long weekend holiday to the Big Apple last month. We had a blast. I wouldn’t say that it was necessarliy relaxing as we had about 12 days worth of activities planned for just four days of stay. Also the weather was pretty terrible the first day but became progressively better until the last day which was gorgeous. 60 degress and blue skies.

We left Friday evening 12 March and returned late Tuesday night 16 March, just in time for me to get to work the next day (…yay). T was on Spring Break and I took that Monday and Tuesday off. Again, it was a great trip.

Seeing as it took me over two weeks to have time to post about this, I am just going to show pictures. I hope to come back to add in-depth captions with an itinerary but for now, enjoy:

I went to the new Main Street Garden a couple of weeks ago for the Grand Opening/Ribbon Cutting event. While maybe 20% of the park was still under construction, it is mostly a very pleasant, urban-feely and cool place to be. There is a white pavilion which will house a café, a shallow rushing-water pond, child’s play area, several smaller pavilions for group seating and a large grassy area. The crowning feature in my book is a restored circus-style “PARK” sign in one corner that used to be the signage of an old parking garage.

Flanking the park on each side is the Mercantile Place mid-rise loft building, a UNT System building, the old Municipal building (which is being restored as the new home of UNT’s law school), and the stellar/unfortunate, Statler Hilton. So it is only about two blocks in size, is in a highly car-trafficked area and is soon to be home of many college students studying, city dwellers walking dogs and policemen keeping the benches free from the homeless (as Mayor Tom Leppert promised).

So, it’s no Central Park but it’s a step in the right direction. And, this is 1 of 4 or 5 parks going in around downtown, with the Woodall Rogers “Deck Park” up next. Like an article I read about this said, “Now all’s we need is a bookstore and a dry cleaner and downtown will be really livable.”

As promised, here is a little photo trip of Friday’s events at the Grand Opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. It began with another oh-so-convenient ride on the DART (though it’s getting quite pricey…surely the Green line didn’t cost that much) and the short walk to the Arts District where we were once again greeted by the towering Wyly Theatre and the welcoming Winspear Opera House. If the Wyly was industrial and raw, the Winspear was classy and refined in its design. Lord (as he was knighted in 1990 by the Queen) Norman Foster gave a superb urbanism lecture at 10AM. I wish every suburbanite could have heard. It was a good “coming back to Jesus” talk about how people naturally flock to urban areas and the way many American cities have grown too attached to the automobile (ahem, Houston – it is the leader).

Here I snapped a sneak peak at the world-famous architect. You can see more of his notable works here.

Basically, the opera house is showcased as a giant (and bright glossy red) ovular extrusion surrounded by a transparent atrium. Even further, a light (in visual weight) white canopy shades the entire space, inside and out, creating a bright and friendly public pedestrian zone. It is truly the gem and heart of the Arts District.

The beautiful red glass that gives the venue its distinct look is what makes it stand out from all across the city. There are even areas where LED text is illuminated from behind, displaying current events and wayfinding graphics.

Inside you find a very simple yet polished, functional theater. There are a whopping 4 balconies above the orchestra section and each are clad in a striking gold texture. One aspect I found disappointing was the seemingly missing chandelier that was previously hailed as the cherry-on-top feature. In its place were a number of recessed lights, probably fifty, each growing brighter and then dim as if they were stars in the sky. Oh well, I thought, what I came for was the lecture anyway…

But wait. Just as the lecture was completed and the house lights grew brighter, the star of the show took over as those very recessed lights produced long glass tubes of light, elongating and lowering into the theater. There were quite a many gasps and gazes upward as everyone froze to see this spectacular grand finale. As you can see, the chandelier smartly complimented the space.

After a lunch break, we came back for the final lecture: Joshua Prince-Ramus of REX in New York. His talk featured an explanation of the Wyly Theatre with all its bells and whistles. There are so many hidden features of the project. Whenever you get a chance to visit Dallas, you must take a look – or book tickets for an event. The venue will be just as rewarding to view as the show.

He continued with presentations on REX’s current and upcoming projects, all very interesting.

After his lecture, all the shades in the glazing surrounding the theater were raised, to engulf the place with light and views to downtown as a reminder of it’s one of the features to wow future patrons at its upcoming events.

The Grand Opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center was this past week, full of free (and not-so-free) performances, facility tours and lectures. Obviously, the highlight for me was the Architecture Forum Lectures made by the designers. I could probably be compared to a 13-year old girl going to see Justin Timberlake, I was so excited. These guys are big. Superstars in the design world. And here they were, in Dallas of all places, giving lectures to the public on design and urbanism. Thursday 15 October featured world renown architect, Rem Koolhaas of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, OMA. He spoke in the newly constructed Dee & Charles Wyly Theatre, or as the cheif designer, Joshua Prince-Ramus calls it, the theater machine (more on him later).

The Wyly Theatre is extremely innovative as far as theater design goes. You can read more here, but basically, what is commonly referred to as the back-of-house, front-of-house areas were made instead the top-of-house, bottom-of-house spaces – making for a very unique, vertically organized creation. To enter the lobby or pre-function area, you walk down a ramp to the sub-grade entrance. There you are greeted already by the green accent color that is executed creatively throughout. Then, you enter the ground-level auditorium either by elevator or stairs. It is a very versatile space, able to transform in as little as four hours to various stage/spectator configurations and was just what the client needed.

Here’s my creeper shot of Joshua Prince-Ramus outside.

Rem Koolhaas.

The graphics and wayfinding were outstanding. Here you can see a portion of the level marker and the restrooms graphic beyond. In typical Koolhaas/OMA style, the hallway between the lobby and the restrooms was completely green – floor, walls and ceiling. Awesome.

The lecture was pretty fantastic and we were able to snoop around and tour the venue afterward. Then, Geoff, who came up for the events, pointed out what looked to be Bjarke Ingles, of BIG in Copenhagen standing in the crowd after the lecture was completed. We both looked carefully, and decided that this would be too good to be true, and he surely wouldn’t come all that way just for this, right? Anyway, we wandered upstairs to the roof-top balcony (not pictured) and other areas. One time we thought we saw Ingles again in passing. Was this really him? It sure looked like him. Finally we found the real jem, the green balcony on the 8th floor. There is a gathering area inside, stark white and elegant, with the balcony beyond. It features great views of downtown, green astroturf flooring and green plastic mesh wall and ceiling covering. A really fun space. And that’s where they were. Both Rem Koolhaas and Bjarke Ingles in conversation. We were able to introduce ourselves to Bjarke, explaining how we were able to visit his office, etc. A bit of an awkward conversation but I left the theater on cloud 9.

Bjarke Ingles on the left, Rem Koolhaas at center-right.