Designers create crossing exhibits
Pair of Portland groups seek to broaden often controversial discussion
Monday, February 22, 2010
If you go
• What: A forum to explore the Columbia River Crossing and its regional impact.
• When: Through Friday.
• Where: Pacific Northwest College of Art, 1241 N.W. Johnson St., Portland.
• Cost: Admission is free.
• What’s next: A large-scale exhibition featuring questions and design approaches at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, opening March 22 with a reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. and running through March 26.
• Finally: A two-hour panel discussion will be at 6 p.m. March 25. Moderator Ethan Seltzer will lead a discussion with experts in design, culture and urban planning. Panelists include Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell, artist Ed Carpenter, outgoing National Endowment of the Arts Director of Design Maurice Cox and Toronto architect and urban design consultant Ken Greenberg.
Fifteen years in the works, planners envision construction will begin on a new Columbia River Crossing two years from now.
Yet, during a bistate meeting of political leaders on Jan. 22 in Vancouver, the prospect of a new Interstate 5 bridge connecting Washington to Oregon seemed as bleak as ever.
Days before, four key project sponsors declared the current proposal for a 10- or 12-lane bridge with tolls “unacceptable.” The mayor of Portland was preparing to design his own bridge, with the same number of lanes as the existing three-lane twin spans. At the Project Sponsors Council meeting, protesters standing along the back of the room held up a poster with an X marked through the letters “CRC.”
“Look at this,” one observer said. “It’s imploding.”
Into the breach, a group of Portland-area architects is hosting a series of exhibitions and presentations intended to “broaden the discussion” of a new Columbia River Crossing. The events are being co-sponsored by the Architecture Foundation of Oregon and PDXplore, an independent collective of five Portland architects, landscape architects and urban designers.
“We’re not pointing fingers and saying, ‘This is what you should or shouldn’t do,’” said Jane Jarrett, executive director of the Architecture Foundation of Oregon. “We are really trying to expand the level of discussion.”
The first exhibit began Feb. 4 at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Envisioned as an evolving collage of maps, drawings, ideas and questions about the crossing, the exhibit will continue through Feb. 26.
PDXplore members Rudy Barton, Carol Mayer-Reed, Mike McCulloch, Rick Potestio and Bill Tripp will then create a large-scale exhibit opening on March 22 reflecting a variety of approaches to the crossing project.
“A lot of the focus has been on the budget, the number of lanes and tolling or not tolling,” Jarrett said. “The bridge design is a small piece of it really.”
A project so large will profoundly affect future land use and development, she said.
“We’re really raising questions in a way that they haven’t been raised with the public to date,” Jarrett said.
Erik Robinson: 360-735-4551 or erik.robinson@columbian.com.
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