Beautility- Beauty and Function Combined at BPA

“Beautility” is a word that appears to have been coined sometime in the 1950s, recognizing the productive marriage that was possible when things were both  attractive and functional.  I first came across the term doing work for the Bonneville Power Administration, BPA.  In the early 1960s BPA, having come to the realization that not everybody saw their transmission lines and substations as works of art, hired a noted Portland, Oregon architectural firm to help them come up with a better design model that would be, well, be-utiliful.  “Beautility" is what Stanton, Boles, Maguire and Church called their approach, published in that summer-blockbuster A Report on Appearance Planning for BPA, released in May 1966.  This is a sketch from that hard to find report.  I found mine at Powell's (and for just $5 too!)

BPA’s Beautility actually made waves in the electric utility world and there were numerous requests for the report during the late 1960s and early 1970s.  BPA took the advice to heart and looking at their control houses, and transmission lines, and substations, the educated eye can easily discern the impact the report had.  Today, as most of those 1960s-1970s era buildings near five decades of service, they are all potentially historic, despite their sometimes space-age design.  “Beautility,” like other works of so-called Mid-Century Modern design, is just now coming into its own.  I think some, like BPA's buildings at the Ceilio Converter Station, show below, already have.

Beautility isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, nor is it frequently what the average person conjures to mind as historic.  We’ll leave alone that electric transmission infrastructure isn’t what the average person often conjures to mind as historic either, other than to mention that you might try to imagine the Pacific Northwest (or anywhere) without it.  "Historic" and stunning architecture aren't synonyms and never were.

I am starting to work on a late Beautility period project for BPA…one clad in colorful panels that surely screams late 1960s.  While I am somewhat disappointed to learn that Stanton et al simply borrowed the term from somebody else, I am pleased to see the use of the word continues (though mostly for hair salons and grooming, according to Google.  Even Nike has a line of clothes under that term).  Still it seems there are few places where "Beautility" could be more appropriate than at BPA which is, after all, what most people consider to be a “Utility.”  One that during the 1960s made an effort toward beauty wherever it could.

Steamline Moderne-Architecture on the Move

Medford's SOHS History Center, built as a J.C. Penney Co. Department store

 Streamline Moderne architecture, roughly popular from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s, was an effort to integrate the design sensibility of the so-called “Machine Age” with architecture and new technologies.  Owing much of its inspiration to industrial designers like Walter Dorwin Teague and Raymond Lowey, who transformed everything from trains to toasters into works of art, Streamline Moderne is often linked with Art Deco (another indistinct term) but in reality is much different.  Whereas Deco was often flamboyantly, well, decorated, Streamline is the architecture of the wind tunnel, the machine.  The best examples of the style have rounded corners, smooth, usually stucco, surfaces, portal-type windows or large banks of glass block.  In the day, Streamline Moderne owned more to the design of cars and planes.  It was architecture of movement, that looked like it was going somewhere, a characteristic that once caused Frank Lloyd Wright to famously respond to a question of his own lack of interest in the style by stating that when “HE” built something, it stayed put.

Moderne, achieving popularity during the Depression and continuing into the postwar period, was adopted for an entire host of new building types linked to technology.  As a result, I run into them often and have always rather been fond of the style.  Many of the early Control Houses and related buildings of the Bonneville Power Administration were designed in Streamlined Moderne and those that remain are textbook examples of industrial architecture looking for new forms to house new, and “modern” technology, as shown at the Covington Untanking House.  Gas stations were also often built in the style, as in Walter Dorwin Teague's famous designs for Texaco.  The three lines at the cornice are literally called "speed lines," as shown in this fine example from La Grande, Oregon.

I’ve always had a mild desire to write a book on Streamline, which gets short shrift in most architectural histories and is in and of itself the subject of just a few studies of any quality.  Often lumped with, and always over-shadowed by Art Deco (which, let’s face it, makes for better images) or even WPA-Moderne, Streamline Moderne is often mis-understood and little appreciated or just confused with other styles. 

Last week, on my way along the Gorge toward eastern Oregon, I drove around The Dalles and stumbled across their absolutely amazing high school, completed by an architect unknown in 1941.  It’s a great great building....certainly worth more than few photos.

Willamette Basin Project

All through the 19^th and early 20^th century the Willamette River flooded, causing damage to agriculture and settled areas that increased as Oregon’s population grew.  By the mid-1930s, as so often happened during that era of belief that government, people, could actually do great things when they worked together for a common good, state leaders were able to encourage the Federal government to consider solutions to the problem.  The Federal government, as it so often did, turned to the US Army Corps of Engineers and the result, authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1936, became known as the Willamette Basin Project.

The Willamette Basin Project was a series of multi-purpose dams, at one time as many as 19, that would control the river and its tributaries as far south as Cottage Grove, to provide for flood control, irrigation and recreational opportunities.  The Corps got started building several of the dams in the late 1930s and then, after the distraction of WWII, got back to work after the massive Vanport Flood of 1948 provided extra emphasis on how dangerous Oregon’s rivers could be.  The last of the 15 dams ultimately built in the Willamette Project, the Blue River Dam, was completed in 1969.

I’ve worked on several of these dams in the past, giving me an appreciation for the scope of Corps (and Oregon) vision during this New Deal-Great Society period of infrastructure construction (even Ike’s Administration, generally opposed to Federal funding, saw merit in the Willamette Basin Project).  At the moment I am working on the Fall Creek Dam and Reservoir, located near Lowell, Oregon.  Fall Creek is an earthen embankment dam, almost a mile long at its crest (5,100 feet) that rises 180’ and impounds Fall Creek, creating a reservoir just under 7 miles long.  Fall Creek was completed, at a cost of $22 million in 1969.

Now, as is happening on several of the Willamette Basin dams, a third party has filed an application to built a small hydropower project on the downstream face of the Fall Creek Dam, generating a small amount of electricity, about 10 megawatts, with the dam’s outflow.  These so-called micro-power projects can add significantly to Oregon’s generation capacity without much environmental impact (the dams are already there) but they trigger Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, sending me out into the field with a camera and into the archive on yet another dam. 

The BPA Transmission System

Back to working on Bonneville Power Administration projects for the past few weeks, this time on a proposed transmission line that crosses the Columbia River between an established substation and a proposed new one that is being built to accommodate all of the new wind generation that is sprouting up along the Gorge.  This project is the first time I have gone through the “Registration Standards” that were developed as part of the BPA Multiple Property Documentation, applying them in a real world situation.

The MPD, which in one form or another has been under development for nearly five years, is intended as a significant management tool that will alleviate SOME of the paperwork that BPA and the eight SHPO offices it interacts with have to process.  Essentially, we defined a historic development context for BPA’s transmission system, all 15,000+ circuit miles and nearly 300 substations that allow them to be (more) easily reviewed for significance and establishes guidelines for evaluation of effect.  Hence the “Registration Standards” that I have been applying to the Big Eddy Substation and four transmission lines that will be affected by proposed project.  So far, so good, but then the two SHPOs haven’t had a chance to respond yet, and that will be the proverbial acid test.

Many people are somewhat surprised that a transmission line, or a switchyard, or a substation related to the generation and transmission of electricity could be considered historic.  Those are usually people who somehow think “historic” and “beautiful” are synonyms.  They aren’t, of course.  And when you think about a “system” that changed our way of life, that is associated with significant themes (like rural electrification, the development the defense or airplane industry in the Pacific Northwest, or the post-WWII development of our region) there are few elements of this region’s history with more impact than the decision to build dams on the Columbia River, create massive amounts of hydroelectricity, and distribute it at low cost throughout the region.  One could argue (and this one has) that there are few other Federal investments in the Pacific Northwest that have had more effect than the creation of BPA and the Federal Columbia River Power System.  The only things that even come close are the Interstate (which just replaced an earlier Federal system of highways) and the land grants associated with the arrival of the railroad.

Now I will turn my attention to the J. D. Ross Substation, in Vancouver, Washington.... a fascinating place that among other things demonstrates a utility can have a sense of style.

Who is Charge Here?

I have been thinking lately about what exactly it is that we, as preservationists, or people concerned about the look and function of communities, are supposed to be doing, when all the dust has settled.  I think about that a lot, but several recent projects have involved me and a bunch of doubting Thomas’ sitting around a table arguing about end product and approaches and what is the best course for the resource, the client, and history.  Or not.  Because surely preservationists can disagree among themselves with the best of them.

Most of our process, as I have written before, tends to focus on architectural detailing, use of materials, and the physical aspects of rehab and preservation.  That’s probably natural, as buildings are the focus, and buildings are made of pieces that can change or be modified in various ways.  How we manage that change is the acid test between rehabilitation and remuddling, right?

But not every building or structure is or should be a museum and sometimes what WAS done may not be the best choice for what needs to be done now, or could be.  Nobody should have to replicate an error, just because it was original design and I like  to think that nobody in preservation would actually expect that.  But conversely, there is no justification that I can think of to remove historic fabric without reason, simply because some bean-counter has decided on the fly that it will better society.

Two recent projects demonstrate differing sides of this complex issue.  In the first a non-historic roofing material was suggested as replacement, providing multiple benefits yet not quite getting the appearance accurate.  Most of us involved, both the proponents and the regulators, were willing to “give it a try” and see how it actually looked at the end of the day but the Federal standards (and the federal money) wouldn’t pay for it and so, whether it was the right thing to do or not, the Federal standards (and the Federal money) required that the same, historic, roofing material be used, despite its acknowledged lower performance.  I suppose that if it’s the Feds money, and they want to pay to replace the roof periodically, it's their call.

But on the other side of the issue is a second situation in which historic windows will be replaced with non-historic windows, providing what almost everyone involved acknowledges are minimal energy benefits while at the same time costing lots of money and damaging historic character.  SOME of us involved think this entire process is a complete and total waste of money, but the Federal standards (and the Federal money) demand that the historic windows be replaced, whether it really makes any sense or not, and at the end of the day the Federal standards (and the Federal money) mean that is exactly what will happen.  I suppose if it’s the Feds money, and they want to waste it paying to replace perfectly decent windows to “save” energy, it's their call.

I think it might be a good idea for the Federal government to get its story straight, to perhaps have one Cabinet-level department talk with another Cabinet-level department and come up with something that at least TRIES to present a consistent approach to what really is the same issue.  Maybe doing so would save we taxpayers money, save our community's history, and probably could Buy American and create jobs (which was the point) in the process.  Maybe it would be a good idea for the National-level preservation community to point out that REHABILITATION actually creates more jobs for Americans than what we are now paying for.  Maybe it would be a good idea for the Administration to actually listen when they do.