The new Jean Vollum Drawing, Painting, and Photography Building at Oregon College of Art and Craft is the first significant Portland building by an architect from beyond the city since Mark O. Hatfield US Federal Courthouse was completed downtown in t
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The new Jean Vollum Drawing, Painting, and Photography Building at Oregon College of Art and Craft is the first significant Portland building by an architect from beyond the city since Mark O. Hatfield US Federal Courthouse was completed downtown in t
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Along with the connecting Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson Thesis Studio building, the Vollum builing is merely the first phase of a larger, three-building addition by Rose interwoven within the hillside landscape and campus’s original buildings’ surroundings
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Along with the connecting Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson Thesis Studio building, the Vollum builing is merely the first phase of a larger, three-building addition by Rose interwoven within the hillside landscape and campus’s original buildings’ surroundings
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Model by Charles Rose Architects.
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Model by Charles Rose Architects.
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From the upturned corner of the roof that marks the Vollum building’s entrance, Rose’s design defines the building less as a volume than as a series of spaces made by intersecting planes.
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From the upturned corner of the roof that marks the Vollum building’s entrance, Rose’s design defines the building less as a volume than as a series of spaces made by intersecting planes.
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This building is a no-frills workshop. A long hallway space functions as gallery, locker room, and casual gathering place, with the landscape seen through the window defining the space as much as any wall.
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This building is a no-frills workshop. A long hallway space functions as gallery, locker room, and casual gathering place, with the landscape seen through the window defining the space as much as any wall.
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Clerestory windows throughout the building bounce the light through the space, offering plenty of illumination for the dark winter months and also a connection to the sky.
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Clerestory windows throughout the building bounce the light through the space, offering plenty of illumination for the dark winter months and also a connection to the sky.
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The studio classrooms are equally well sunlit but also feature shades if teachers and students want to control the light.
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The studio classrooms are equally well sunlit but also feature shades if teachers and students want to control the light.
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There are few right angles in the building, a condition that, at the meeting of canted walls and roof, void and solid, creates spectacularly abstract effects, as fitting for a church as for a workspace—the perfect combination of utility and beau
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There are few right angles in the building, a condition that, at the meeting of canted walls and roof, void and solid, creates spectacularly abstract effects, as fitting for a church as for a workspace—the perfect combination of utility and beau
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The abstract quality of Rose’s architecture makes for compelling exterior forms that, exquisitely crafted out of humble materials, befit the Oregon College of Art and Craft roots in Oregon’s early-20th-century Arts and Crafts movement.
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The abstract quality of Rose’s architecture makes for compelling exterior forms that, exquisitely crafted out of humble materials, befit the Oregon College of Art and Craft roots in Oregon’s early-20th-century Arts and Crafts movement.
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But perhaps most important of all is the manner that Rose interweaves the forms with the landscape…
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But perhaps most important of all is the manner that Rose interweaves the forms with the landscape…
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…and the way he connects the buildings together.
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…and the way he connects the buildings together.
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Rose buildings are often likened to origami. But that’s way too simple.
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Rose buildings are often likened to origami. But that’s way too simple.
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His architecture is more akin to a dance: a pas de deux between the building and landscape—or better yet, a pas de trois: landscape, architecture, and light.
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His architecture is more akin to a dance: a pas de deux between the building and landscape—or better yet, a pas de trois: landscape, architecture, and light.
AT THECLOSE OF A YEAR that has yielded only fleeting moments of good news, consider pausing to enjoy something great, built to last, and newly finished this fall: Oregon College of Art and Craft’s new Jean Vollum Drawing, Painting, and Photography Building.
If its craftsmanship, the way it shapes the winter light, or the artists buzzing inside don’t juice the urge to take a class in the new year, it may at least inspire you to move your desk next to the best window and start making a better 2011.
Designed by the Boston-based Charles Rose Architects, the $7 million structure is a rare Portland building designed by a great architect from elsewhere. And on that short list, it compares best to another landmark built to inspire: the Mt Angel Abbey Library, completed in St. Benedict, Oregon, in 1970, one of only two buildings in the US designed by the Finnish master Alvar Aalto. Coincidentally, both buildings happened courtesy of major gifts from Howard and Jean Vollum and their Tektronix fortune. (Read about another of their contributions on page 69.) But in both cases, the architects beautifully channeled the region’s landscape and light to encourage the tasks inside: the library for learning, the studio building for making art.
Built for the monks (but open to the public), Aalto’s library unfolds with an expansive, semicircular room that stair-steps down the abbey’s hilltop in a series of tiers filled with book stacks and study tables, all naturally lit through the high, curving window above. The abbey’s breathtaking views of the Willamette Valley can be experienced only with effort—you have to stand up and walk over to the small windows at the end of the stacks, a kind of brief study break before you return to the life of the mind. With every detail, Aalto fashioned a calming invitation to think more expansively.
Charles Rose’s studio building is, appropriately, all about energy. There’s scarcely a right angle. Walls, roofs, and even windows jut and fold, in, out, up, and down. The views here come in pieces. A long, linear window gracing the entrance hallway/gallery frames the angular plantings of grasses outside into an abstract mural. In the studio classrooms, high clerestory windows reach for the clouds, but dip just low enough to catch the tops of surrounding hills. Every corner is a carefully composed and crafted convergence of forces that turns the artmaking inside into a collaboration with the surroundings.
I often end the year with a visit to the Mt Angel Abbey Library on my late-December birthday to let Aalto’s orchestration of space and light help me find my next horizon. Although far more modest in size and aim, Charles Rose’s design for the Vollum building has a similarly powerful effect, inviting you to rally your wits, feel the possibilities of the moment, and get on with adding something creative to the world.
Published in the Best Bars issue of Portland Monthly.
