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.

The Thrill of Discovery

Okay, I will admit that I enjoy designing ceramic tile elements as part of rehabs or restoration.  Tile bulkheads, the portion of the wall below a storefront window, were a typical portion of early 20th century design and bringing that feature back has been a common element of the various facade programs in Medford and elsewhere.  The original tile is almost always gone, removed by some well-meaning "update" in the 1950s or 1960s, and so we rely upon historic images and very very rarely a little physical evidence to design new tile patterns that are "in the spirit." Luckily, most basic colors are still available and the designs are simple and cost-effective. 

But there is the occasional "find," where the original tile is still there, unbeknownst to anyone.  Finding it is a great day and last week, at the Holly Theatre, it was a great day.  We have only one historic photo and no plans, of the entry to the theatre and there was no indication whatsoever of what the floor surface was.  Upon purchase it was covered with old red indoor-outdoor carpeting.

Upon purchase the old red carpet was replaced with boring tan, simply as a placeholder.  Sans any other information and looking for a historically appropriate design that would support the Spanish Colonial theme, I borrowed a painted flower detail from the proscenium and the plan was to resurface the entryway with a new terrazzo design that would include donor recognition tiles and the "H" logo that was both part of the original marquee and is to become the project logo.  I was pretty happy with the design, as was the client, but there is always the issue of creating something out of whole cloth and wondering if its "right" and really going to fit.

  

Well, that issue is past and the terrazzo design has been shelved.  As part of developing the bid for that work, the contractors were out exploring, looking at the substrate under the new carpet, and discovered that instead of it being the concrete slab that we'd all understood it to be, it was just a thin mortar coating, over tile. I got an e-mail last Thursday and after an inital moment of disbelief, went to check it out.  We cleaned up the tile a little and I was impressed with how good it looked after what is at minimum four decades of hiding, probably more.

Today they will strip off more of the carpet, and expose more of the original tile pattern, allowing us to assess the condition of what it there and the full scope of the design.  Certainly there is going to be damage and a design issue where the ticket booth once stood, but we can deal with that.  If we can save the tile, we will, and if not we will replicate this design using new materials that as closely match the original as is possible.  It's great fun to find a hidden piece of history that nobody knew or remembered being there.  I always wonder why somebody would cover something like this up, and hide it under mortar and boring carpet, but I am sure the Holly has more hidden secrets to reveal.  What fun!

Willamette Falls Industrial Area

For some years I have had multiple reasons to research, study, and write about the history of the Willamette Falls Industrial Area, a complex slice of Oregon at the Falls, lining both banks of the river between Oregon City and West Linn.  A few weeks ago I up there again, touring ‘round with a film crew for an upcoming documentary on one of Oregon’s most fascinating few acres.

Famed as “end of the Oregon Trail,” this area was also the start of Oregon industry.  Water power was a key element in city building in the 19^th century, a fact that wasn’t lost on John McLaughlin who started to carve a mill race out of the bedrock in 1829.  As the Oregon Territory grew, so did interest in the falls, which boosters soon envisioned as the Niagara Falls or the Lowell, of Oregon.  In 1865 one of Oregon’s first woolen mills opened here, followed by a pulp mill, and then, in 1873 a public-private partnership built the Willamette Falls Locks and Canal, breaking the shipping monopoly that had controlled freight shipments and stifled development for decades.  Another pulp mill, a more successful one, the Willamette Falls Pulp and Paper Company, started operation in 1883.

Beginning in the mid-1880s, an entrepreneur named Edward Eastham started to assemble property and water rights on both sides of the river with the idea of generating electricity to power Portland.  In June 1889 Eastham’s company, then called the Willamette Falls Electric Company, transmit DC power from the Falls to downtown Portland, a distance of 12 miles.  Not much to us, but historically significant as the first “long-distance” electrical transmission in the United States.  In 1890, having converted the plant, “Station A,” to Alternating Current, the company did it again, even though George Westinghouse, who manufactured the new AC generators, wasn’t sure it would work.  Five years later generation at the Falls was shifted across the river, to a huge new plant designed by Thomas W. Sullivan.  Dubbed “Station B,” that plant would provide virtually every watt of power in the Portland area for the next decade. 

By 1906 the Willamette Falls Electric Company, along with more than 30 other companies, would become the Portland Railway Light and Power Company.  Today the company is known as Portland General Electric.  And Station B, renamed the T.W. Sullivan Hydroelectric Project, still produces power at the Willamette Falls.  It’s the oldest continuously operated hydroelectric plant in the country.

The Holly Theatre, Medford

Several months ago I reported on the announced transformation of Medford’s Holly Theatre into a fully restored performing arts center to be operated by the JPR Foundation, the same folks that run the successful Cascade Theatre in Redding, California.  I see this not only as a great opportunity for a long neglected building, the Frank Clark-designed Holly Theatre, but as a wonderful opportunity for downtown Medford.  A revitalized Holly Theatre will, in tandem with the existing Craterian Theatre, essentially double Medford’s night-time draw, support the growing number of high-quality eateries in downtown and, written broadly, give people another good reason to be in downtown Medford after the end of the business day.

While the media has been quiet, except for the occasional doubting Thomas who still fear that Medford can’t support two theatres (nonsense), the JPR Foundation has not.  Most of the Holly’s interior has been cleaned up, as the previous owner removed things that had been stored there, creating an even more impressive space.  The Holly is, well, HUGE, with a single seating rake that once held more than 1200 seats.  The deep stage is largely empty, the leaking roof of the fly has now been repaired and the lighting is on, so you can appreciate the amazing interior.  JPR has been working on finalizing the application for a MURA Facade Improvement Grant, and expects to start work on recreating the huge 33-foot tall neon sign and the projecting marquee by late Fall.  Planning is underway for the major restoration effort, including new systems, improved building services, and, of course, an entirely accurate restoration and rehabilitation that will return the building to full function.  There are, of course, LOTS of decisions yet to be made, and lots of surprises yet to come, but the Holly is clearly on the road back.  Medford is very very lucky.

Sparta Building-Prismatic Glass, Transoms and Cornice

Oh mysteries of the internet!  For reasons unexplained, one of the most popular pages on this blog has been the one about replicating the prismatic glass at the Sparta Building, in downtown Medford, that was posted 18-December-2010.  I followed up with an in-process in June and now, that the windows are in (and having no shame) I thought I’d post a few pictures of how those transoms look installed.  The Sparta project is moving ahead; most of the exterior glazing is in and the tile bulkheads are ready for grouting.  

I’ve also put a photo in showing the replicated sheet metal cornice (stored on the roof for the moment) that will soon be mounted on the south elevation, replacing the one that a previous owner foolishly removed and destroyed.

 

Irish Bend Covered Bridge- Historic once again

In 1979 the Oregon SHPO approved a thematic study, a multiple property submittal, to list 46 of Oregon’s then 56 covered bridges on the National Register.  That document brought not only new appreciation for these quaint structures, but eventually access to funding through the Federal government and the Oregon Department of Transportation.  One of those 46 structures, the Irish Bend Covered Bridge, located outside Monroe, Oregon, was already in trouble.  The bridge, built in 1954 from 1920s plans, had been bypassed by a new road and the portion of the Willamette Slough that it traversed in this rural, agricultural, area had been shunted through a culvert.  Hardly romantic, but certainly functional and easy-to-maintain.

Benton County, which could no longer maintain the bridge with road funds, tried to find a good use for the span as interest in covered bridges grew.  They offered it to the City of Albany, which considered moving it to Bryant Park, and then to Multnomah County, who as Oregon’s most populous county felt disadvantaged by their lack of a covered bridge.  Neither offer came to fruition.  After what the Covered Bridge Society of Oregon termed “14 years of uncertainty,” the Irish Bend Covered Bridge was disassembled and the pieces were stored at the Benton County Fairgrounds.  Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation did what such committees do when a resource is dismantled with no assurance it’ll be saved; they removed the bridge from the National Register in May 1989.

They may have acted precipitously.  Spurred by the situation, the Covered Bridge Society approached Benton County’s Board of Commissioners with the idea of rebuilding the bridge as part of the Campus Way bike path at OSU.  The location was perfect, crossing Oak Creek, out on the western end of the campus near the agricultural college’s barns.  It’s about as rural a location in the middle of college campus that you can imagine.  The County said “sure,” and offered to pony up a third of the funding (and the bridge) if the community could raise the remainder.  OSU agreed to the idea, funding and volunteer hours, much of it from off-duty Benton County Public Works employees and OSU staff, brought the bridge back to life, rebuilding the trusses, and replicating the damaged pieces carefully and accurately.  The rebuilt Irish Bend Covered Bridge was rededicated on November 13, 1989.

While the story has a happy ending, the bridge hasn’t been formally considered “historic” since May 1989.  As part of a project to better protect the bridge and do some minor work on it, Benton County is now going ahead and submitting a new nomination to again list the Irish Bend Covered Bridge on the National Register.  Oregon, today, has only 50 remaining covered bridges.  It will be good to see one more recognized by the National Register.

The Green Bridge of Sheridan

Sheridan is an incorporated town located between McMinnville and Willamina, on the South Yamhill River, in Yamhill County.  Platted in 1866, a major feature of the community from the start has been the bridge, connecting the business district on the south bank of the river, with the county road, what is now the Willamina-Sheridan Highway, on the north.  If you wanted to get across the river, you went to Sheridan, to the end of Bridge Street, and did.

The wooden bridge (there may have been more than one, Sheridan has a long and sad history of fire and flood) was replaced by a steel thru truss in 1910.  We know this from photos that show the bridge before the big fire of 1913, and from a short notice in the Oregonian about several Sheridan merchants that were upset about being assessed for the cost of the approach spans.  That first steel bridge was reportedly salvaged from its original location, across the Willamette River, in Portland.  Moving steel bridges around was an early form of municipal recycling.

But Sheridan prospered, despite the floods (there was a bad one in 1921) and the fires (another in 1922, destroyed most of the commercial district) and soon traffic outgrew the salvaged steel span that was probably 20 years old before it made it ever made it to Sheridan.  In 1939 the Mountain States Construction Company, of Eugene, put the finishing touches on Sheridan’s last bridge, a 131’ long Parker-design thru truss designed by the Oregon State Highway Department and funded in part by the New Deal’s Public Works Administration.  The Sheridan Bridge still stands, almost entirely intact, eight decades later.  Painted by OSHD as they painted most of their steel spans during that era, it’s affectionately known as the Green Bridge.

Sheridan has received funding to rehab the bridge, to improve its structural capacity for seismic, to repaint to protect the steel from the elements, and to keep it as the iconic landmark in downtown for a long time.  It’s a great project...and a fun one to document too.