Thursday, July 1, 2010

She matches the crosswalk signal.

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Walking south on SE 7th Avenue, towards SE Belmont. I saw her coming and waited to take the photo until she'd gone on by last Saturday while on my way to the Architectural Heritage Center for a lecture on Portland's concrete houses, both form-to-look-like-stone and poured-in-forms walls.

Here's what was on their Web site about the lecture: Concrete Houses of Portland
In the early twentieth century, concrete challenged Portland’s ubiquitous timber as the building material of choice for “modern” residences. As early as 1906, Portland architects and builders had begun constructing homes from solid concrete blocks formed to look like stone. In following years, other local builders experimented with the “Edison mold”—houses built entirely of continuous poured concrete panels. Concrete houses never became the norm in Portland, but numerous examples can still be found in all quarters of the city.

2 comments:

ptermclean said...

Im not making the connection between why she looks like a crossing signal and the concrete homes... Is it and inside joke?

Clytie said...

Well I certainly have to admire her courage to go out and about looking like a traffic signal! she probably doesn't have any issues when jay-walking :=}

The abandoned mega-church across from my house is one of the largest poured-in-place concrete buildings in Oregon, from what I've heard. I had no idea it was a special process until I talked to an architect who extolled on the subject!