Randy Gragg and Mayoral Candidate Jules Bailey in southeast Portland.
Greg Bond / OPB
This week our resident architecture critic, Randy Gragg, joined mayoral candidates Jules Bailey and Ted Wheeler on walkabout. Gragg took the candidates through their paces, pushing them to get specific about the architecture and design issues facing our city.
Wheeler, Oregon's state Treasurer and a former Multnomah County chair, elected to stroll through Montavilla, one of Southeast Portland’s increasingly rare beasts: a desirable yet still affordable neighborhood.
Bailey, former state representative and county commissioner, chose to revisit the neighborhood he grew up in: Sunnyside, the home of popular SE strips Belmont and Hawthorne.
Check out video highlights, below, and don't forget to scroll on for our Portland architecture taste test: a slideshow capturing the candidates' takes on individual buildings, including an ultramodern house recently plopped into the middle of the historic Alberta neighborhood that has caught a lot of flak.
Finally, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to listen to Gragg, Bailey, and Wheeler's appearance at the Bright Lights conversation series at Jimmy Mak's, where they dug even deeper into urban design and architecture.
Editors note: Videographer, Greg Bond, OPB
Wheeler’s secret weapon for saving the historic structures of Montavilla from destructive development: SE 82nd Ave.
Wheeler: “I just don’t fundamentally believe that anybody should be be beholden to what is already in the past … I believe the community has a stake in the future. We’re all collectively part of it.”
How can Portland house its growing workforce? Bailey proposes changing building codes to allow for more high-density housing.
To bring down the costs of development, Bailey says, we need to reduce the amount of red tape required to build.
If the blue and yellow multi-use building currently housing Belmont Records goes down, what will replace it? Bailey wants to make sure that developers respect the special character of this inner southeast corridor.
A Portland Architecture Taste Test: Yea, Nay, Or Meh?
The candidates weigh in on the buildings that are defining and redefining Portland architecture.
Location: SE Division Street, Hacker. Ted Wheeler: Oh, my wife would love that. I'm not much of a modernist. I like the balconies, I like the fact that there's a lot of activity, so Salt and Straw, down, I love. The rest is meh for me, but you can see the activity at the street level, you can see there's people walking and biking. It looks like it's well integrated into the neighborhood. Jules Bailey: I like this building a lot. I think it’s interesting. I think where it’s at works. I think it’s got some neat lines to it and has been an asset to the neighborhood.
Randy Gragg
Location: SE Ankeny and Eighth, Vallaster Corl Architects. Ted Wheeler: I like it! Yeah. Jules Bailey: I think it’s interesting. I like the pops of color, I like the balconies. I think there’s some interesting design aspects there.
Randy Gragg
Location: SE 12th and Burnside, KTGY. Ted Wheeler: Less enthusiastic about the façade. I like the fact that there're sidewalks, walkability, first-floor retail, I could see a lot of activity there. So that's yea. Jules Bailey: This one feels a little monolithic, especially knowing the intersection. It doesn’t stand out to me. Somewhere between meh and yuck.
Randy Gragg
Location: SE 17th and Tacoma, Myrhe Group. Ted Wheeler: Yea, because they actually hired an architect, and they tried to preserve the historic character of the neighborhood. It's kind of reflective of the kind of window treatment you'd see on some of the historic buildings in the neighborhood, so that's pretty good. Jules Bailey: Not my favorite, but again it has more a neighborhood feel. Maybe it works in the neighborhood it’s in, but not my taste.
Randy Gragg
Location: NE Sandy Blvd, Next to the Hollywood Theater, Myrhe Group. Ted Wheeler: No. That's a no, because it's next to the Hollywood Theater, and this gets to our earlier point. You can't just steamroll what's already there and what's already a unique asset to the community. And to me it just looks completely different than the existing character of the neighborhood. Jules Bailey: The problem with this building is it obscures this beautiful landmark of the Hollywood Theater. It makes it harder to see it and hides it as you drive up Sandy.
Randy Gragg
Location: Alberta Neighborhood, Waechter Architecture. Ted Wheeler: Well that, that's really cool. Is that your house? Jules Bailey: You know, I have a hard time with these very modern structures set right in the neighborhood. I like it as a standalone structure… might live there myself if I could afford it… I wonder how those neighbors feel about a big black wall next to their window.
Randy Gragg
Location: (unnamed) Ted Wheeler: That's a lot of stairs. It looks like it's like a floor too tall. I'm no great architectural critic, but I know my mother wouldn't want to navigate all the stairs going up to the first floor.
Randy Gragg
Location: (unnamed) SE Division Street, Works Partnership Ted Wheeler: Again, I'm not a huge fan of the stark modernist style of architecture, but that's just me personally. I like the fact that there's first floor retail. I think it brings a bit of life to the neighborhood Jules Bailey: I like that one too…I like the flow of that building.
Randy Gragg
Location: NE 20th and Everett, Morton Building Design. Ted Wheeler: They made an effort to keep the street front the same level as other buildings and other structures in the neighborhood, so I appreciate that fact. It's tall, it stands, but at least it looks like the architect made an effort to have the front match the rest of the street, so I give him credit for that. Jules Bailey: Well, I don’t think the photo helps that it was taken on a dark, rainy day. Seems a little disjointed. I’d give that a meh.
Randy Gragg
Location: North Williams and Fremont, Holst Architecture. Ted Wheeler: Super cool. Architecturally it's interesting. I have to think about whether I'd want to live there. It's actually offices? Well that makes more sense. I think it's really interesting. Jules Bailey: Again, context on Williams is challenging because there’s so much change. I’d want to be careful about a building [that's] so different, but as a standalone I like the architecture.
Randy Gragg
Location: Modera Pearl, NW 13th and Quimby, SERA (290 units). Ted Wheeler: People are going to hate me for saying this, I just think they look uninspired. This one in particular looks like a great big wall. Jules Bailey: [The first one] Looks fairly run of the mill. Doesn’t catch my eye.
Randy Gragg
Location: Block 17 Apartments, NW 11th and Overton, BOORA (281 units—Randy notes almost the same as the last one). Ted Wheeler: I know that we have architects in this town that, if they weren't hemmed in by a lot of the rules and requirements, and we gave them the opportunity to create something unique, they wouldn't come up with this. Jules Bailey: Interesting that there’s some height variation. I like the smaller one.
Randy Gragg
Location: Montavilla (proposed), concept by Lever Architecture. Ted Wheeler: 76th and Stark? My suspicion is it does not fit with the feel of the neighborhood. Architecturally, it's really interesting. I'm just not sure it's a good fit for this neighborhood.
Randy Gragg
Location: 8th and Lloyd, GBD Architects. Jules Bailey: I think that might actually work in the Lloyd District. Not my favorite building, but that might really fit in. It’s a gorgeous house.
Randy Gragg
Bright Lights: Portland's Mayoral Candidates Talk Urban Design
Mayoral candidates Jules Bailey and Ted Wheeler talked about architecture, urban planning, and design with Randy Gragg at the Bright Lights conversation series at Jimmy Mak's earlier this year.