I want to get inside more buildings and take photos from a higher plane.

March 4, 2013, I took off from work and attended the tour attached to the Benson Hotel's 100th anniversary. The best part, being able to go into empty hotel rooms, look around a bit, then take some photos through the windows. I'm looking northeast here. Notice on the skyline the rounded top of Mount St. Helens, still covered with snow? See the black, open-work towers of the Steel Bridge sticking up above that red brick building?

Best of all, this view of the Big Pink. I know, I know. It doesn't look pink this time--it's more a taupe color, in my opinion. I like that you can see that the corner is not a 90 degree angle. (Read more about both in the next paragraph.) Fun fact: My two sons Lamont and Leland used to prep and cook at the Portland City Grill which takes up the entire 30th floor of the Big Pink. When Mama and I visited Portland for the first time in the summer of 2004, we stayed at the Benson Hotel and got to tour the Portland City Grill in the morning before it opened. I think it was July 4, but I cannot remember for sure. I love that places and sights I remember from that first visit are in my life, almost daily in some instances--my work commute involves the Big Pink, morning and afternoon. Sweet.

Here's more about the Big Pink's design, including the glass and the granite. Perhaps the most unusual features of the U.S. Bancorp Tower are its shape and color. Pietro Belluschi, consultant on the building, was most concerned about the play of light and shadows on its surface; meanwhile, the designers, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), had to work with a uniquely shaped lot due to the street grid. Because of the street grid, the tower features no right angles in its parallelogram footprint. This, in turn, makes it look either extremely slender or wide depending upon one's viewing angle. Belluschi carefully selected the glass and granite for the exterior facing. The pink granite covering the building was quarried in Spain. The Pittsburgh Plate Glass used for the windows is also pink, an effect caused by its being "glazed in a semitransparent coating of copper and silver that looks pink from the outside." The windows can absorb or reflect light depending upon how much light is upon them, while the surrounding granite may appear darker or lighter than the window panes, depending upon the time of day. The unusual color earned the building the nickname "Big Pink."

More about the building peaking between the columns and the wall in Friday's post.

Vintage photo, found online. On the right, the U. S. Bank and its massive columns which I posted about Friday and had in the background of the post on the Thursday; on the left, Pietro Belluschi's Equitable Building. Looks to me like the vehicles are late 1940's vintage. What do you think? By the way, today it is known as the Commonwealth Building.


My photo from January 9, 2009. I'm not nuts about lots of what I think of as modern architecture. I miss the details which I enjoy on vintage facades. However, I adore this building. You can just see the corner of the U. S. Bank at the top right of the photo.

Here's a bit about the building that I found at americanwaymag dot com: Pietro Belluschi's Commonwealth Building, 1944-1948 (the construction years): Seemingly floating in the sky, this sleek glass tower, a vision of sea-green glass and gleaming metal, was the first of its kind, pioneering the way for other famous buildings like New York's Lever House and the United Nations Building. What set it apart? Among other things, it was the first to be sheathed in aluminum, be fully air-conditioned, and feature double-sealed glass windows (reducing solar heat and eliminating sky glare). It also set the standard for compact, boxlike structures.

Here's an article about the style of the building, from the Washington State Department of Archaeology & Historic Preservation:
CURTAIN WALL
1948 - 1965

The Curtain Wall style refers to mid-20th Century buildings that use a prefabricated exterior wall sheathing system of glass hung to their frames. While the curtain wall system was used on portions of buildings, and the exterior materials varied widely, the Curtain Wall style refers to buildings which utilized a glass and aluminum system for a majority of the exterior facade.

The use of such technology dates back to the 1918 Hallidie Building in San Francisco, which is credited as the first building to use an all glass exterior wall system. However, it was not until post-WWII when advancements in building technology allowed these systems to become widespread.

The first major example of the style was the Equitable Savings & Loan Building in Portland, Oregon executed by architect Pietro Bellushi in 1948. As the world’s first fully enclosed air-conditioned building, this sleek 12-story structure quickly set the pattern for many post-war skyscrapers and small scale office buildings.

The curtain wall system is comprised of a repetitive grid of vertical extruded aluminum mullions and horizontal rails. Panels called spandrels divide the large expanses of glass horizontally to hide the floors and ceilings. These spandrel panels can come in a variety of materials. Early spandrel panels were made of heat-strengthened opaque glass fused with colored ceramic. The Pittsburg Plate Glass Company manufactured the glass panels under the trade name “Spandrelite,” and offered eight standard colors. The Libbey-Owens-Ford Corporation sold sixteen colors options under the “Vitrolux” brand. Colors ranged from “Hunter Green” to “Cavalier Red,” to “Charcoal” and “Suntone” Yellow. While customers could order custom colors, typical tones found in the Northwest included turquoise, pink and blue. Later, spandrels were available in other materials such as composite metal panels containing lightweight insulation cores, precast concrete panels, asbestos panels, thin stone veneer, and plywood panels (a material particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest).

Considered suitable for virtually any size commercial, government or institutional building, the Curtain Wall style became widespread by the early 1950s. Many post WWII buildings of varying styles also incorporated curtain wall systems into some facades but are not considered Curtain Wall style unless the majority of the visible facades are so constructed. The modular construction method used to construct the Curtain Wall style made it economical and popular for a time. However, by the late 1960s it was being replaced with a more smooth or Slick Skin application.

And here's a bit more about the building itself, found at Wikipedia:

The Commonwealth Building is a 14-story commercial office tower in Portland, Oregon, United States, located at 421 SW 6th Avenue between Washington and Stark Streets. Designed by architect Pietro Belluschi, it was built between 1944 and 1948 and was originally known as the Equitable Building. It is noted as one of the first glass box towers ever built, pioneering many modern features and predating the more famous Lever House in Manhattan.

The building, which was built as the headquarters in Portland of the Equitable Savings and Loan Association, was originally intended to be 12 stories high but was later expanded to 14. It is constructed of sea-green glass and was the first to be sheathed in aluminum. It was also the first to use double-glazed window panels, and was the first to be completely sealed and fully air-conditioned.

The Commonwealth Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places (as the Equitable Building) in 1976. In 1980, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the Commonwealth Building as a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. The ASME History & Heritage Committee bestowed this landmark status for the specific feature: the first large commercial building in the United States to pioneer the use of heat pumps for heating and cooling.

Seen from the MAX Yellow Line, Portland's Big Pink.

Saturday on the way to get my flu shot at Kaiser Interstate, I decided to try holding the camera next to the window of the MAX train, pointing it up towards The Big Pink. Oh, joyous serendipity! I got a decent photo of the building and the parking garage next to it. Read below so you'll understand why it doesn't look pink at this particular moment, and why it has that nickname. The yellowish rectangular spot is the reflection of a fluorescent light in the MAX train.

From Wikipedia: The US Bancorp Tower is the second tallest skyscraper in Portland, Oregon. It stands at 536 feet (163 m) with 42 floors. The building has nearly 1.1 million square feet (69,000 m²) of office space inside, making it the largest office building in Oregon in terms of volume, and the second tallest building in Oregon, with only the Wells Fargo Center exceeding its height.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) with Pietro Belluschi as a consultant. The tower opened in 1983 with construction costs of $128 million. At first the building served as the national headquarters of U.S. Bancorp, then the regional headquarters of that organization after a 1997 merger moved the corporate offices to Minneapolis, Minnesota. U.S. Bancorp has 480,000 square feet (45,000 m2) leased until 2015.

Perhaps the most unusual features of the building are its shape and color. Pietro Belluschi was most concerned about the play of light and shadows on its surface; meanwhile, the SOM team had to work with a uniquely shaped lot due to the street grid. The meshing of these two concerns led to what has been called Portland's most dynamic building. Because of the street grid, the tower features no right angles in its parallelogram footprint. This, in turn, makes it look either extremely slender or wide depending upon your viewing angle. Belluschi carefully selected the glass and granite for the exterior facing. The windows can absorb or reflect light depending upon how much light is upon them, while the surrounding granite may appear darker or lighter than the window pieces depending upon the time of day. The building can be described as being pink, orange, purple, or even gray all in the same day. The unusual pinkish color earned the building the nickname "Big Pink", after an album by The Band.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the top floors held the headquarters of Louisiana-Pacific. Since a $4 million renovation in 2002, the thirtieth floor of the tower has been occupied by the Portland City Grill, Portland's top-grossing restaurant. It is often cited as the restaurant with the best view in Portland. (Lamont and Leland both used to work at Portland City Grill.)

The building was purchased by JPMorgan Asset Management in August 2006 for a price of $286 million. It was previously owned by Unico who purchased it in 2000 for a price of $165 million. Currently, 92% of the building is occupied.
On September 9, 2008, LaSalle Investment Management entered a purchase partnership with Unico Properties for $285 million to acquire the building.

Pietro Belluschi's Equitable Building

On Saturday, Jan. 9, after a Tour Guide Committee meeting at the PCPA, I roamed SW 6th with two things in mind. Find A. E. Doyle buildings and find Belluschi's building. First for you, Belluschi's building.

How many times have I walked by this building, on SW Washington at SW 6th Avenue? For most of the last three years, five days a week after work. Rushing from one bus to make the connection to another one, I never realized I had been that close to such an outstanding example of architecture, right here in Portland. I had seen photos of it, but those were taken when it stood tall alone.

Cold, blustery, those two words described the afternoon for the most part. If the sun hadn't struggled to shine now and then, I would have boarded a bus home and given up my quest.


Taken on SW 6th Avenue, looking southwest towards an amazing looking building in downtown Portland.



This isn't the corner I walked by all those times, but I love how the color of the glass shows in this photo.

From Wikipedia:
The Commonwealth Building is a 13-story commercial office tower in Portland, Oregon, United States, located at 421 SW 6th Avenue between Washington and Stark Streets. Designed by architect Pietro Belluschi, it was built between 1944 and 1948 and was originally known as the Equitable Building. It is noted as one of the first glass box towers ever built, pioneering many modern features and predating the more famous Lever House in Manhattan.

The building, which was built as the headquarters in Portland of the Equitable Savings and Loan Association, was originally intended to be 12 stories high but was expanded to 13. It is constructed of sea-green glass and was the first to be sheathed in aluminum. It was also the first to use double-glazed window panels, and was the first to be completely sealed and fully air-conditioned.

The Commonwealth Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places (as the Equitable Building) in 1976.

In 1980, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the Commonwealth Building as a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. The ASME History & Heritage Committee bestowed this landmark status for the specific feature: the first large commercial building in the United States to pioneer the use of heat pumps for heating and cooling.

Taken on SW 6th Avenue, looking northwest at the Equitable Building, now known as the Commonwealth Building. This is the corner I walked by so many times, noticing the businesses but not the building.


Consumed with the desire to be artsy, I walked to the sharp corner of the building, the brown column between the green umbrellas, and took this photo.


I found these two images on the Internet--they show the Equitable Building in the late 1940s.