Pioneer Courthouse Square
Encyclopedia
Public space
A public space is a social space such as a town square that is open and accessible to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, age or socio-economic level. One of the earliest examples of public spaces are commons. For example, no fees or paid tickets are required for entry, nor are the entrants...
occupying a full 40,000 ft² (3700 m²) city block
City block
A city block, urban block or simply block is a central element of urban planning and urban design. A city block is the smallest area that is surrounded by streets. City blocks are the space for buildings within the street pattern of a city, they form the basic unit of a city's urban fabric...
in the center of downtown Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The square is bounded by Southwest Morrison Street on the north, Southwest 6th Avenue on the east, Southwest Yamhill Street on the south, and Southwest Broadway on the west.
History
Town square
A town square is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town used for community gatherings. Other names for town square are civic center, city square, urban square, market square, public square, and town green.Most town squares are hardscapes suitable for open markets,...
is named after the Pioneer Courthouse
Pioneer Courthouse
The Pioneer Courthouse is a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, United States. Built beginning in 1869, the structure is the oldest federal building in the Pacific Northwest, and the second oldest west of the Mississippi River. Along with Pioneer Courthouse Square, it serves as the center of...
, an 1875 federal building occupying the block directly east of the square.
The square itself dates back to 1856, when the city purchased land which included the site as the location for Central School. The school was moved in 1883 when plans were made for a major hotel on the site in response to the arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway
Northern Pacific Railway
The Northern Pacific Railway was a railway that operated in the west along the Canadian border of the United States. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in...
. After delays due to a recession
Recession
In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, a general slowdown in economic activity. During recessions, many macroeconomic indicators vary in a similar way...
, the eight-story Portland Hotel
Portland Hotel
The Portland Hotel was a late-19th-century hotel in Portland, Oregon, United States that once occupied the city block on which Pioneer Courthouse Square now stands. It closed in 1951 after 61 years of operation.-History:...
was completed on the site in 1890.
The hotel was the center of the city's social activity for the first half of the 20th century. In 1951, the hotel was torn down and a two-story parking lot was built. An original archway and gatework from the hotel were conscientiously made part of the square's design and are found today on the south side of the square.
An 800-car parking garage was proposed to the Portland Planning Commission in January 1969, which was rejected, instead calling for a public plaza. In the early 1970s, a comprehensive downtown plan proposed that the site become dedicated public space. In 1975, then mayor of Portland Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Goldschmidt
Neil Edward Goldschmidt is an American businessman and former Democratic politician from Oregon who held local, state, and federal offices over three decades. After serving as the governor of Oregon, Goldschmidt is widely considered the most influential figure in the state's politics, both as an...
began negotiating with local department store Meier & Frank
Meier & Frank
Meier & Frank was a chain of department stores founded in Portland, Oregon, and later bought out by the May Department Stores Company. Meier & Frank operated in the Pacific Northwest from 1857 to 2006.-History:Summary...
to obtain the property for the city and eventually convinced the store to sell the land to the city after its parking concerns were alleviated. By early 1980, a design competition was announced, seeking proposals for what was to become Pioneer Courthouse Square. Out of 162 submissions, five finalists emerged, from firms based in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Philadelphia, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and Portland. The Portland team, "a group of rabble-raising architects, writers, and an artist" led by chief designer Willard Martin, competed against a group composed of Frank Ivancie
Frank Ivancie
Francis J. "Frank" Ivancie is a retired Portland, Oregon businessman and politician who served as mayor of that city from 1981 through 1985. Prior to his term as mayor, Ivancie served for fourteen years on the Portland City Council...
and Bill Roberts, who wanted to charge admission to a full-block atrium
Atrium (architecture)
In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...
at the site. Willard Martin's group literally painted their design on the parking lot occupying the block, and their plan was accepted. Their design received an "Architectural Design Citation" from Progressive Architecture magazine in 1981.
Funding problems surfaced after the design was completed. Portland mayor Frank Ivancie
Frank Ivancie
Francis J. "Frank" Ivancie is a retired Portland, Oregon businessman and politician who served as mayor of that city from 1981 through 1985. Prior to his term as mayor, Ivancie served for fourteen years on the Portland City Council...
led some downtown business owners and other influential citizens in opposing the concept of an open (instead of enclosed) public square, based on concerns that an open design would attract transients
Homelessness
Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
to the area. Former Governor Tom McCall
Tom McCall
Thomas Lawson McCall was an American politician and journalist in the state of Oregon. A Republican, he was the 30th Governor of Oregon from 1967 to 1975. A native of Massachusetts, he grew up there and in Central Oregon before attending the University of Oregon...
, who by then was a television commentator, was indignant:
It would be a shock ... to many Oregonians to learn that a few power brokerPower broker (term)A power broker is a person who can influence people to vote towards a particular client in exchange for political or financial benefits. Power brokers can also negotiate deals with other power brokers to meet their aims....
s have declared that the result of a nationwide design rivalry is meaningless...
The square's construction required $3 million for land acquisition and $4.3 million for the structures and amenities, a large enough amount that the opposition nearly doomed the project. Martin, together with other architects and volunteers, drew attention to the delays from the opposition by painting a stylized blueprint
Blueprint
A blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
of the proposal on the site itself. But it took the formation of "Friends of Pioneer Square", a citizen's group led by city commissioners Charles Jordan and Mike Lindberg, and $750,000 raised by the sale of 50,000 inscribed bricks, to rescue the project.
The square opened on April 6, 1984, with an inaugural celebration that attracted more than 10,000 people.
By October 1988, when the fountain was turned over to the Portland Water Bureau
Portland Water Bureau
The Portland Water Bureau is the municipal water department for the city of Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. The bureau manages a water supply that comes mainly from the Bull Run River in the foothills of the Cascade Range east of the city and secondarily from the Columbia South Shore Well...
, the fountain already needed repairs. The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
called it "a leaker with corroding drain lines".
In 2001, the completion of Fox Tower, a skyscraper on the block immediately southwest of the square, caused controversy among citizens due to the fact that it blocks sunlight from the majority of the square during the afternoon and evening hours.
In 2002, the organization controlling the square had plans to add a large ice skating rink for four months of the year, at a cost of $12 million. The Pioneer Square group and Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces
Project for Public Spaces is a nonprofit organization based in New York dedicated to creating and sustaining public places that build communities. Planning and design rooted in the community form the cornerstone of PPS’s work. Building on the techniques of William H...
thought the rink would make the Square more active in the winter months, and had funding pledged by The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
and Wells Fargo Bank. There was a strong negative reaction, as admission would be charged, violating the free-speech ethos of the square and its design. As Park Block 5
Director Park
Director Park is a city park in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon. Opened in 2009 at a cost of $9.5 million, it covers a 700-space underground parking garage, which connects underground to the Fox Tower and the incomplete Park Avenue West Tower...
was being designed, many felt the ice rink should be placed there instead.
Features and use
On Morrison and Yamhill streets (the north and south boundaries of the square) are sheltered MAX Light Rail stops. On the north side is an artistic feature, consisting of towering classical columns which progressively topple over like those of an ancient ruin. There are outdoor chessChess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
tables on some of the toppled columns; chess players frequently congregate there during the day. A cascading waterfall on the west side of the square frames the entrance to a public information center. The center of the square is arranged like an amphitheater, with a semicircle of approximately two dozen steps serving as seats when the square is used for musical performances or other events. Pioneer Courthouse Square was a designated non-smoking area as of 1 January 2007.
The bricks used to pave the square were sold to raise funds for the square's construction, and are inscribed with donors' names. Eric Ladd, an "early pioneer of…sustainable living," built the wrought-iron gateway on the eastern edge of the Square in the 1970s, out of scrap salvaged from the Portland Hotel.
In March 2009, Portland's NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
affiliate, KGW
KGW
KGW is an NBC affiliate television station serving the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. The station broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 8, from its transmitter in Portland. It also produces segments and serves as the Portland bureau for Northwest Cable News , which is also owned by...
, opened a high-definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
news studio at the square, which it uses to broadcast its morning, noon and 7 p.m. newscasts. The studio was constructed in space previously occupied by a branch of Powell's Books
Powell's Books
Powell's Books is a chain of bookstores in Oregon's Portland metropolitan area. Powell's headquarters, dubbed Powell's City of Books, claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world. Powell's City of Books is located in the Pearl District on the edge of downtown and...
, and the first regular broadcast to air from the location was the 4:30 a.m. newscast on March 17, 2009.
The square costs an estimated $1.2 million to the city per year, mostly for security, cleanup, and events.
Allow Me
John Seward Johnson II
John Seward Johnson II also known as J. Seward Johnson, Jr. and Seward Johnson is an American artist known for his trompe l'oeil painted bronze statues, and a grandson of Robert Wood Johnson I ....
Allow Me, commonly referred to as Umbrella Man. It is on the south side of the square, just above the amphitheater. Allow Me is a bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
statue of a man in a business suit holding an umbrella.
Weather Machine
The Weather Machine, a 33 feet (10.1 m) metal column topped with a large silver-colored orb, was installed in August 1988. At noon each day, the following day's weather is announced with a fanfareFanfare
A Fanfare is a relatively short piece of music that is typically played by trumpets and other brass instruments often accompanied by percussion...
of trumpets, flashing lights, and a spray of mist. The orb opens to reveal one of the following:
- a golden leaf sun, for a clear day;
- a silver great blue heronGreat Blue HeronThe Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America as well as the West Indies and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to Europe, with records from Spain, the Azores and England...
, to forecast a drizzly, misty, or overcast day; - an open-mouthed copper dragonEuropean dragonEuropean dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...
, when storms are forecast.
Light bulbs on the side of the machine are reminiscent of a mercury thermometer and light up progressively as the temperature increases.
Events
On June 27, 2006, Pioneer Courthouse Square held one of the largest gatherings in its history, with approximately 8,500 fans filling the public square to pay tribute to the recently crowned 2006 NCAA College World Series
College World Series
The College World Series or CWS is an annual baseball tournament held in Omaha, Nebraska that is the culmination of the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship, which determines the NCAA Division I college baseball champion. The eight teams are split into two, four-team, double-elimination brackets,...
Baseball Champion Oregon State Beavers
Oregon State Beavers
The Oregon State Beavers is a name shared by all sports teams at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. The Beavers are part of the Pacific-12 Conference . Oregon State's mascot is Benny the Beaver...
.
On July 14, 2009, between 8,000 and 12,000 people filled Pioneer Courthouse Square for comedian Dave Chappelle
Dave Chappelle
David Khari Webber "Dave" Chappelle is an American comedian, screenwriter, television/film producer, actor, and artist. Chappelle began his film career in the film Robin Hood: Men in Tights in 1993 and continued to star in minor roles in the films The Nutty Professor, Con Air, and Blue Streak. His...
's 1 am appearance.
Reception
In 2006, architect Laurie OlinLaurie Olin
Laurie Olin is an American landscape architect. He has worked on everything from private residences to large public parks. Olin grew up in Alaska, and earned his degree in Architecture from the University of Washington, in Seattle where he was mentored under Richard Haag. After graduating he...
described Pioneer Courthouse Square, stating "you really can't sit in the shade in Pioneer Square. It's not quiet. The fountain looks like a Postmodern pit. It is intended to be a citywide park. It needs big, empty spaces. If it's empty, then
Further reading
- Frozen Music: A History of Portland Architecture, (1985, ISBN 0-87595-164-3)
External links
- Official website for non-profit organization managing the square
- Information on the Square from the Portland Parks & Recreation website
- Pioneer Courthouse Square wins honor - Portland Business Journal