« Please consider contacting City Council to protest razing of Memorial Coliseum | Main | Coliseum update: City Council hearing Wednesday morning, 9:30AM »
Oregonian op-ed compares losing Coliseum to New York's tragic loss of Penn Station
I was disappointed to see the Oregonian editorial board today expressed support for tearing down Memorial Coliseum to build a baseball stadium for a minor league team 1% of the city cares about. But luckily, the paper (which I also freelance for) was also good enough to publish this op-ed from architect Ryan Yaden:
In 1963 New York's Penn Station was demolished to make way for Madison Square Garden. Since then generations of New Yorkers have lamented its loss. We shouldn't let Portland's Memorial Coliseum become our Penn Station.
Manhattan's original 1910 Pennsylvania Station by McKim, Mead and White was a classic of turn-of-the century Beaux Arts architecture with massive stonework and soaring spaces. But by the 1960s it was viewed as old and out of date. Obsolescence and operating expense were cited by the owners as reasons to tear it down and replace it with a new complex of modern concourses, offices and an arena.
As the great structure was razed, The New York Times wrote a heated eulogy: "Until the first blow fell, no one was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished, or that New York would permit this monumental act of vandalism against one of the largest and finest landmarks of its age."
Today Memorial Coliseum faces a similar fate.
A new Triple A baseball stadium that was approved as part of a package to bring Major League Soccer to Portland is most often shown on the site of Memorial Coliseum. The timeline puts the need for a plan to be accepted by this fall, so there isn't much time. The site was doubtless chosen for its prime location and size, and in recent years the coliseum has generally been described as obsolete, redundant and expensive to operate.
Looking past the (very real) practical issues, we see one of the great buildings of an era. Three years prior to the demolition of Penn Station, in 1960, Skidmore Owings and Merrill completed Memorial Coliseum, dedicated to the "advancement of cultural opportunities for the community and to the memory of our veterans of all wars who made the supreme sacrifice."
It's a sophisticated glass box with a gentle curving bowl set inside for the arena. Inside on the concourse is one of the great views of downtown Portland set against the Willamette River. It signifies a hopeful and progressive time in Portland and since its dedication has hosted some of the more memorable shared experiences for the city.
Most of us who grew up in Portland have some significant childhood memory associated with the coliseum. Don't let its demolition be the lament of future generations simply because we couldn't appreciate its significance in our own time. Beaux Arts structures were thought of as irrelevant in the 1960s, and since then we have learned that a lost masterpiece like Penn Station simply cannot be re-created. It's a nonrenewable resource: When it's gone, it's gone forever.
Now, I'm an avid soccer fan and player, and I'm thrilled that Major League Soccer has chosen Portland for its expansion. Likewise, I'm looking forward to watching both baseball and soccer in stadiums that are more conducive to each activity. But that shouldn't come at the expense of one of the great buildings of its era.
It's time that Portland put its considerable energy and progressive thinking toward adapting Memorial Coliseum to a new and financially sound use. As with any large project, the political, legal and development issues are formidable. It's a difficult problem, but not more challenging than what we have solved in the past.
For the same reasons, people said we couldn't draw a line around the city to preserve our rural lands from development. But we did, and the Urban Growth Boundary was born. People said we couldn't use federal transportation funds for mass transit instead of highways. But we did, and the MAX light-rail system was born.
We have a legacy of accomplishing unconventional change when it improves the quality of our environment.
Go visit the coliseum if you haven't recently. Step back a moment and appreciate the elegant structure for what it is. Look at the details and picture the spirit of that era. Stand on the concourse and look at the city that has grown up so much since 1960.
Yes, the building is a little worse for wear, but for a structure that's almost 50 years old, that's to be expected. With any luck, it won't be the last time you see it.
In the end, Penn Station's demolition did have a silver lining in becoming the example of how devastating lost heritage can be. I hope that won't be the legacy of Memorial Coliseum.
Ryan Yaden of North Portland is an architect and urban designer with Firm 151.
You can sound off here:
http://www.portlandonline.com/mayor/
You will also see there is a public meeting tomorrow night (April 16) from 6-8pm at the Leftbank Building (240 North Broadway)
Does anyone know what this means????
There is a public notice posted in the DJC today regarding a proposed exemption from competitive bidding process for "improvements at PGE park and a new public improvement, a Triple-A baseball stadium in the Rose Quarter of Portland, potentially at the present location of Memorial Coliseum..."
The notice also says the project is "estimated to cost $88,695,000, for designing, engineering, managing, and constructing the Triple-A stadium and the renovation of PGE Park."
Posted by: anon | April 13, 2009 at 01:49 PM
NYC letting Penn Station be torn down was one of the dumbest moves that city has ever made. Eminently more grand than the memorial coliseum, the MC is still a design worth keeping around. The kicker to the Penn Station loss was the piece of crap that replaced Penn Station that the city continues to live with to this day. Is this Portland's future for the Memorial Coliseum site?
Here's an alternative thought I always like to consider when big forces want to dispense with a long standing work of great architecture. Is it possible to build the intended new structure within the exterior of the existing or re sited, reconstructed and enlarged existing design? Put that triple A baseball stadium inside a MC glass curtain enclosure with an open-close roof? Sure it can be done, but the folks that want to tear down the MC probably wouldn't like such an idea. No, they'll probably want something, anything...that doesn't look like the MC.
I meant the meeting is April 14th (not the 16th). That is tomorrow night from 6-8pm at the Leftbank Building (240 North Broadway)
The DJC seems to suggest it will be design-build project delivery, as cheap as it gets. This will not be a fitting replacement for the MC.
Posted by: rnobles | April 13, 2009 at 09:20 PM
I'm sorry but I kind of feel like the child in the fairy tale of the emperor with no clothes - can't everyone see, the building is ugly!
Posted by: johnson | April 14, 2009 at 10:33 AM
Johnson...I feel your pain...I don't get it either...this is the architects' equivalent of a fanboy tantrum...the rest of us just have to stand out of the way until it's over :-)
Posted by: Scott | April 14, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Johnson and Scott, just because you don't possess the same knowledge about design and history doesn't mean this is some kind of elitist effort. I've received countless people from all walks of life expressing interest in the Coliseum being preserved. Some of the general public has not yet formed an appreciation for modern and contemporary architecture. But many, many educated and enlightened people have.
And even if YOU don't see the design mastery in Memorial Coliseum, doesn't it give you pause that huge organizations like the National Trust have come out in favor it its preservation? Or are they at the Trust not appropriately Homer Simpson-like in their sensibilities?
I know a lot more about design than you do, have an architecture degree and practiced for the last twenty years so don't point your finger at me. Just because all of the lemmings are jumping off the cliff doesn't mean that I want to take a grand dive as well. I am simply pointing out that the building is ugly - I have always felt that way and nothing that my peers do to urge me to change my mind will.
Johnson,
I apologize for not realizing you were a trained architect. You probably do know more about architecture than I do.
Just not in this case.
You are allowed to have an opinion, just don't call me an idiot because I have one....
Posted by: johnson | April 14, 2009 at 01:11 PM
this squabble betwix Brian and Johnson reminds me of that joke...
q - what do you call the guy who finishes last in his med school class?
a - doctor.
being an architect does not in any way mean you have taste. look around at some of the garbage being built in our very own city.
Posted by: eric cantona | April 14, 2009 at 03:03 PM
I think the point of the above posts is that taste is subjective...just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they are wrong...it just means you have different taste...neither of which is wrong or bad. I think the fact is that some people on this forum seem to insinuate that theirs is the ONLY CORRECT opinion, and that anyone who disagrees is a knuckle-dragging simpleton...they seem unable to accept that there are ALOT of people who don't care for the MC...they simply dismiss them as "uneducated" and "unenlightened"
Posted by: Scott | April 14, 2009 at 03:33 PM
Good post - Eric, next time I see you, I'm going to give you a big hug...
'Subjective' (thanks, Scott)is right. I don't like the looks of the newer Rose Garden Arena, but apparently some people think it looks good. I wish instead of that swoopy stucco turtle shell, they'd designed something cool and classy, inspired by the Memorial Coliseum's design.
I could see Audrey Hepburn's character from Breakfast at Tiffany's(black dress, hair up, long cigarette holder) over at the MC, but not at the RG arena. The RG arena is like something Hanna-Barbara drew up for the the Flintstones.
I had to laugh, reading letters to the editor in the Oregonian today. One letter writer was dismayed to note that every illustration for a baseball stadium on the coliseum's site had the seats facing away from the river and the westside cityscape. I wouldn't have thought much about it if I hadn't earlier read the post on another thread here about baseball rules requiring that home plate be set facing southeast (think I got that right). So there's another good reason not to have a ballpark on that site; can't take advantage of the great view from inside the building.