Spring term has just ended and most students are enjoying their summer breaks, but 14 students are already back in the classroom. We shouldn’t feel too bad for them because their classroom is in Copenhagen, Denmark, as a part of their three-week Sustainable Bicycle Transportation course in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Students in Copenhagen. Photo by Marc Schlossberg
The students are led by UO Associate Professor Marc Schlossberg. He has planned a three-week itinerary that begins in Copenhagen and continues to Utrecht, Netherlands, and then moves to Amsterdam. In each of the cities, students will do coursework, experience the urban environment on bike, meet with local leaders, and keep a diary of their experiences.
" We started off the day with our first formal lecture, but held the lecture in the kitchen of a local family!" Photo by Marc Schlossberg
While the diary of their experiences is written for themselves and their instructor only, all students and Schlossberg are writing more publicly about their experiences in individual blogs. They arrived less than a week ago, but most students have posted their first reactions to bike culture in Copenhagen and posted pictures that illustrate their experiences. For all of the students’ blogs, check out the class blog directory.
“I conclude from my time cycling in Copenhagen that bicycling is natural. Everyone here is just doing it. It has rained every day I’ve been here and I’ve been told this is normal. They don’t even really bother to cover their bicycle seats when it’s parked in the rain, like many people in Eugene do. It’s just so common that bicycling is a way of living. The hipsters ride fixed gears just like in the USA. People bike in the rain or sun, either way they will still bike because it’s just more convenient.”
“It was really great to talk with locals and compare the bicycle infrastructure here to some of the infrastructure that we have back home. There are so many simple changes that could be made throughout our cities in the U.S. that would make bicycling more feasible and safer.”
“Stop lines for cyclists are often placed a few meters in front of the stop lines for automobiles to increase visibility and safety. “Right hooks” are still an issue in Copenhagen, but this simple treatment has made a difference. Retrofitting lorries with additional mirrors is another simple technique to decrease the likelihood of collisions.”
Photo by Marc Schlossberg
Marc Schlossberg posted a round up of some of the first experiences on the trip so far.
“It is quite satisfying to be on a bike and be part of the dominant mode where all vehicles yield always (and where cyclists all yield to pedestrians always).”
The students will continue to update their blogs as they move to the Netherlands, so keep following along. The blogs demonstrate what the students learn from the experience, but also take everyone else along and teach us about what is needed to build a successful bicycle network and culture.
Harboe works with the firm of Harboe Architects in Chicago. Harboe’s lecture, “Restoring Chicago’s Icons: A Public/Private Partnership,” focused on describing Harboe’s fascination with the past, respect and passion for historic objects, and his work with some of Chicago’s most historically and architecturally relevant restoration projects. For over 20 years Harboe has played key roles in working to restore iconic structures of the Chicago cityscape, including the Rookery, the Mies van der Rohe apartments on Lake Shore Drive, and the Reliance and Marquette buildings. “Preserving our collective cultural heritage is important to society,” commented Harboe, “we need to give it a life that will extend it beyond us.”
With a lifelong interest in conservation and preservation, Harboe credits his childhood experience of living in a New Jersey Revolutionary War-era home as fostering an early affection for history and objects. It was in this historically relevant family residence that the young Harboe discovered an interest in found objects and gained an appreciation for antiques. Harboe soon turned to an education steeped in historical study, spending a year in Denmark at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen; and later earning a bachelor’s degree in history from Brown University and a master’s degree in historic preservation from Columbia. His hands-on and practical skills were cultivated further with his work as a carpenter eventually leading to a job on the team that would restore the Frank Lloyd Wright Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Harboe has credited that MoMa experience as being “where the epiphany happened. I realized that the key decisions about what got done had already been made by somebody else: the architect.” Hence, he turned his focus to pursue a master’s in architecture from MIT.
The Rookery | Image http://therookerybuilding.com/
Harboe, equipped with load-bearing quantities of academic, visionary and practical experience was soon working with the Preservation Group at McClier, the architects who would be commissioned by the Baldwin Development Company to restore The Rookery. Considered the jewel in the crown of Chicago’s architectural and commercial built environment, The Rookery is a 1888 Burnham & Root building that included a lobby by FLW. As luck would have it, Harboe was the intern-architect-in-training at the firm, and he amusingly recalls “I was the guy who knew something about preservation.” The rest, as they say, is history. And so, began Harboe’s presentation to the UO audience.
Harboe initially presented his work with the Rookery, completed in 1992. Revealing intriguing details such as how each window had to be removed, all original sashes put back in place, and having to cope with 4000 corners of fenestration where water had ample opportunity to leak in (and it had), Harboe walked us through the trials and tribulations of careful, accurate and painstakingly detailed historic restoration and preservation. Removing approximately 20 layers of black paint from the oriel staircase (removed and cleaned by crushed walnut shells under pressure), and having to rely on a creative interpretation of replicating single piece teardrop elements as two pieces glued together, the architect-preservationist confided aspects of the process to reconstruct the original LaSalle Street and Adams Street lobbies to the original [circa 1910] appearance. Harboe spoke of the importance of finding sources to help recreate or restore elements to an historically appropriate form. This might include the use of historic photographs, finding a small but original fragment of wall or flooring, or simply cleaning a surface down to a semblance of its historic original. Graciously offering credit to the workers and craftspeople who joined him on the project, Harboe firmly advocated for the importance of hiring “the right people for the job,” saying “craftsman make a difference.”
The Reliance Building | Image Harboe Architects, PC
Harboe’s preservation, restoration and rehabilitation of The Rookery was praised by both the architectural and historical preservation professional fields as well as the city of Chicago. Having completed this very successful project, Harboe moved on to his involvement with the Reliance Building, also by Burnham and Company (1891) and completed by Charles Atwood (DH Burnham and Company, 1896). The Reliance Building is one of the most important early skyscrapers in America. At this point, Harboe paused to address the importance of the Federal Tax Credit to his historic preservation work. Harboe explained the effectiveness of the Federal Historic Preservation Tax incentive program as contributing to positive and cost effective public/private revitalization programs and, hence, directly influencing his projects.
The Reliance Building (renamed and converted to the Hotel Burnham in 1999) has been termed “proto-modern” by architectural historians. Its expansive and elegant fenestration and strip-like sections of white glazed terra cotta are distinctive and highly relevant to its design. Like all of Harboe’s projects he addressed during his lecture, the building is listed both as a National Historic Landmark and a City of Chicago Landmark. Harboe noted the remarkable steel curtain wall that is made up of an internal steel two story-high column and provides all structural support for the building. He also spoke of the importance of being creative and flexible when needing to find substitute materials. For instance, the windows in this building were beyond repair, they were replaced. The original cornice that had been removed in 1948 was reconstructed in cast aluminum. Even with these alterations, Harboe stayed persistently true to the original patterns. Harboe further emphasized his use of historic photographs, drawings and remaining fragments in the detective-like job to authentically replicate a structure. Harboe also brought up another important issue in his historic preservation projects, that of the importance of place and infusing a place with renewed vitality. The primary focus of this historic preservation project, he commented was to “give life to [the street] and that [was] the intention of the project, to revitalize.”
Sullivan Center | Image Harboe Architects, PC
Harboe’s work on the Sullivan Center (built 1898-1904) involved all exterior restoration, Federal Tax Credit Program consulting, and City of Chicago façade examinations. A building best known for the elaborate cast iron storefronts and a curved rotunda, the project truly relied on the Tax Credit incentive; Harboe briefly discussed how his focus had to fixedly remain “not doing anything that would jeopardize the Tax Credit.” In order to create the necessary elements for this building, Harboe turned to a sculptor to recreate the details characteristic of the original designer, Louis Sullivan. Working with a craftsperson familiar with the techniques available to create ornamental work was of great importance. With exceptional workers, Harboe maintained his team was able to place remarkable attention to exact detail and towards the investigation of existing parts to restore this building. Speaking of the reconstruction of the ribbon windows, the matching of the colors for the glass elements, and the color matching for the terra cotta (working from found fragments buried deep within the walls), Harboe stressed the challenging aspects of his work. Turning to an amusing anecdote of good fortune on-site, Harboe recounted the team finding a large fragment of paint that had been trapped under a canopy. The fragment would consequently be used to attain a correct color match and be the most formative piece leading to an accurate hue. Using and having a knowledge of forensic investigative-like techniques is very helpful in the restoration field, commented Harboe, noting that he relies on such investigative strategies for each project.
Much of the cast iron work for the Sullivan Center was done off-site. Harboe recalled how this turned the project into a gargantuan job with disassembly of parts that “in many cases were held in place by the friction of the corrosion.” Harboe added that this campaign of difficult structural situations made each stage arduous especially with the added logistical difficulty of having to remove each piece to an off-site location.
Chicago Board of Trade | Image Harboe Architects PC
Harboe’s work on the Chicago Board of Trade Building (1929, Holabird and Root), one of the finest Art Deco style buildings in Chicago, began in 2004 with renovation efforts to restore the Art Deco aesthetic of the lobbies, improve elevator operations for 24 elevators, and modernize building systems. The building was of particular importance to Chicago as it is viewed as a symbol of the city. Harboe began this project by cleaning the exterior limestone surface of the structure simply with water. He advocated for using “environmentally friendly substances whenever possible.” Important features of this project included the interior lobbies with six varieties of marble, nickel silver metal trim and ornamental plaster as well as a luminous ceiling featuring a panel of light. All of the lobbies were illuminated by stylized fixtures using nickel silver frames and glass, the challenge here was to recreate missing fixtures, and nickel silver features. On this project, Harboe related finding some original treated elements that became key pieces to the restoration. Harboe’s keen attention to detail and his willingness to really look, explore, observe and delve into the hidden pockets of a structure and find minute details of ornamentation, color, and materials has lead to many of his discoveries that end up being the pieces that put the puzzle of historic restoration together. The necessity of being able to look and investigate, research and uncover is one of the most important aspects to any restoration project and cannot be underestimated.
Commenting on his experience with all these projects, Harboe again emphasized the importance of the workers who help realize the projects. “The tradesman make the difference,” he asserted. Concluding his lecture with this advice, Harboe took questions from the audience.
Architect Brad Cloepfil, AIA, released the book, Allied Works Architecture / Brad Cloepfil: Occupation in 2011. [Text by Sandy Isenstadt, Kenneth Frampton.Photographs by Victoria Sambunaris.Hardcover / Slipcase / Clothbound440 pages, Illustrated throughout.$85.00 (ISBN: 9780980024258)]
Allied Works' proposal for a new pavilion for Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec features five interlocking, cantilevered concrete shells. Image courtesy Allied Works Architecture.
Internationally recognized along with his firm, Allied Works Architecture, Cloepfil and his team have designed a number of influential buildings and master plans for major cultural, educational, commercial and residential clients. The book is a “comprehensive monograph” that covers Allied Works’ important commissions from 1994 to 2011, including the world headquarters for Wieden+Kennedy (2000), the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2003), the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (2008), the Clyfford Still Museum (2011), and the forthcoming National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary, Alberta (2014) — and contains an extensive selection of images documenting each project. These include context photography by Victoria Sambunaris, sketches by Cloepfil, physical models, and architectural drawings. Called “highly readable dialogues,” this collection effectively illuminates numerous aspects of Cloepfil’s approach to architecture as well as revealing a variety of personal elements that influence and inform his work.
Cloepfil addresses his University of Oregon in Portland audience, April 2012.
On April 12, 2012, Cloepfil came to the University of Oregon in Portland at the White Stag Block to deliver his lecture “OCCUPATION.” The title of his lecture was borrowed from his recently published book, a choice presumably made as he spoke about the designs incorporated into the text. Speaking to a small, intimate audience, the scale was human, the conversation approachable and the discourse provocative and engrossing. In a way, this setting was very much akin to Cloepfil’s architectural practice, his reasoning of grounding a connection, in this case, between audience and speaker (rather than earth and building). With such a closely woven experience, Cloepfil’s advocacy for a keen recognition of setting and environment was very apparent. His carefully articulated lecture was absorbed by grateful, autograph seeking students together with a calm and interested audience that melded students and community designers interested in hearing firsthand the eloquence of this University of Oregon architecture alumnus [BArch ’80].
As an architect, Cloepfil, a sort of Portland design deity, rarely needs more introduction than to mention that he is principal founder of Allied Works Architecture, with offices based in both Portland and New York. His name is synonymous with positive downtown monumental, restorative projects of immense creativity and contribution to the city and landscape in which they are integrated. His reputation as a self-assured maverick innovator somewhat precedes him; his penchant and ability to soothingly deliver eloquent and linguistically stunning monologues on his designs and theory also is well-known. I was intrigued by this combination of personality and practice, and welcomed the opportunity to join the group of Cloepfil disciples who converged on the White Stag April 12. So it was on that Thursday evening that I assembled with an attentive White Stag audience. Comfortably sitting in darkness, we awaited great things and slide images of inspiring vision.
Cloepfil signs a copy of his book for a UO Department of Architecture student.
Cloepfil began by saying architecture is an “act that amplifies insight into a place.” He urged his audience to see a very specific environmental context to building design and to see things one would not normally see by really looking at “place, noticing order, forces at play, qualities not immediately obvious, characteristics and conditions.” We learned that Cloepfil finds Oregon’s hazelnut orchards to be his “favorite architecture”; the texture and
quality of light that the rows of trees present “create the opportunity for action” and the “possibility of response.”
Using the brilliant word “ENTWINEMENT,” (which to me sounds like a beautiful almost sculptural illusionary portmanteau for architectural theory), Clopefil spoke of his Maryhill Overlook as “building a wall ….as a reference point that would measure and magnify everything around it.” Sort of entwining the land, the light, the
aesthetic of design and the materials. It is an intentional method to inspire and provoke a thought: “what impact can architecture have in a landscape?”
Addressing his design ideals, Cloepfil says, “walls” have the ability to “weave a pattern;” and “landscape and light” can bring the inside outside and vice versa. Recognizing that, we can proceed to the architect’s foremost concept that a structure “should knit itself” into its environment, as his Dutchess County Residence Guest House (New York) establishes its location and occupies a deciduous forest becoming “a bridge for the intimate acts of living.”
Cloepfil's Dutchess County Residence Guest House, New York. Image courtesy of photographer Dean Kaufman.
Most importantly, continues Cloepfil, despite the use of materials like steel, glass and wood, the very ingredients of the design must emerge, flow, and wander in the natural landscape not limiting nor preventing a sense of the natural environment which must prevail and “hold to the ground.”
Perhaps it was Cloepfil’s admission of his love for the “American landscape,” an urban landscape, he says, that is inherently “beautiful” that gently coaxed his audience to sit farther forward on their seats, listening even more intently. The slide image backdrop was now a lot in St. Louis, bare and flat mowed grass: to some, devoid of inspiration. To Cloepfil, this “urban prairie of undifferentiated space” is boundless and gives the opportunity to the architect to explore a “ribbon and rodeo of planes” of a structurally transparent and responsive environment. Cloepfil spoke passionately of possibility in such a seemingly barren cityscape: he sees a monumentality in the sky, and he imagines an architecture that will “hold this space”, a space of both “relic and ruin,” of “grace and offering.”
When Cloepfil turned to commissions not won (with the graciously unpretentious comment, “and these are projects we did not get….”), he showed work imagined yet not completed. His ideas still realistically leapt off the slide screen in carefully crafted models, the barest of sketches some almost Rodinesque in their simplicity and single line use.
Throughout the image | model tour of Allied Works three dimensional visions, Cloepfil’s adoration of light and the bridging of structure in a space remained consistently evident: his “series of walls that dance across the landscape” that “cantilever and transform….filter light and space” all contributing to our understanding of this individual as ultimately concerned with the quality of a place. Cloepfil is not just enamoured with structural studies, the formulation of a working plan and building: his methodology transcends this to take a design into a matrix of structure and space where even the seams and crevices of a wall achieve relevance.
Cloepfil introduced us to his use of EMBEDMENT, a building holding its ground or being embedded in the ground and under a boundless sky. He spoke of using the structure as an element that would be brought to the ground creating one solid place where the qualities of light and the rendering of a surface will be given the chance to interact and create a play of light and shadow. There exists a pressing or rooting to the earth that enables the structure to rise up– every surface infused with importance. EMBEDMENT becomes a key element of Cloepfil’s aesthetic: the ability to produce a grounded yet watery-shimmer of light with the placement and exploration of materiality.
AMPLIFICATION, says Cloepfil, as he continued on his detailed design discourse, is the ability of a building to amplify something (a condition) to elevate a concept, to suppress other things. Somewhat abstract, AMPLIFICATION was embraced by Cloepfil’s proposal for the National Music Centre of Canada (Calgary) where the strong Alberta landscape situated between soaring mountain and vast prairie called for the weaving of structure and land and yet to still needed to manifest a significant cultural appreciation. About the NMC, Cloepfil speaks of the material quality that “creates this world” and how the “interior walls move with a geometry” as light scampers at will up and down the walls ”unifying all.”
Drawing his lecture to a close, Cloepfil said “boldness is required to expand human and natural resources.” A sense of humility creates architecture by “allowing the influence of other factors that enrich and extend the life of a building.” It is this “humility” in design that posits a question of what architecture can really offer. Says Cloepfil, it “creates an experience that enriches the life of the place.”
As for us here in downtown Portland, and those who pass by Cloepfil’s much-lauded Wieden+Kennedy building, why not look around, perhaps more than usual while on a daily trek? On those days when I wander our cherished P-town, I am usually in search of an early morning cappuccino, with my eyes aware only of the Oregon gray skies and dim morning light, my step full-steam ahead to avoid impending rain and work-rushed vehicles. I have to say Cloepfil’s insights have somewhat altered my state of mind. Cloepfil says, yes, the Oregon skies are gray, and yes, he unabashedly uses concrete (“for its malleability and earth-like quality”) which might magnify Oregon’s spectacular calm gray-ness. And this seems to be the point, Cloepfil’s designs sit firmly on their
ground, confident, self-assured, permanent, strong and vital—but different and attractively stand-alone in dramatic and assertive ways. A part of the built environment, Cloepfil’s buildings clear of distractions around them creating a space that then fills with light, is receptive to movement and sound, and embraces the activity takes place within.
Cloepfil mentioned in his lecture that his Maryhill Overlook is a reference point in the landscape, “a measure and a magnifier of everything around it.” Strike out a little, venture east of Portland far up the Columbia River Gorge and go see Allied Works’ Maryhill Overlook. Grapple with this ribbon of concrete that seems to push up from the flat, expansive bluff to lie open and inviting to the limitless skyscape and imagine a connection—the bond between earth and sky, the seamless reach of silverish poured concrete beaming up into the vast Oregon sky. It is a basking mirror of the light and landscape of the Columbia River Gorge’s natural greatness, reflecting the illumination and cloud cover of an ever-changing vault of atmosphere.
As the human element that comes into Cloepfil’s created spaces, we get to experience with a depth and emotion, that sense of being enveloped by architecture while it assists in how we interact with our surroundings. Cloepfil’s lecture urged us to look outside the expansive skins of glass fenestration to the wonder and vastness of nature and sky, or observe the movement on a street, the bustle of daily life and to see a connection between the interior and the exterior. At the forest-snuggled Dutchess Residence Guest House, glass walls encourage interaction and acknowledgement of trees, light and space. As the architect notes, these designs seek to recognize the transparency of flowing through a space, light cascading down to dance in a path, chasing or following us with shadow, and immersing our body in illumination (even on a gray day, there is light). Cloepfil’s designs don’t just invite the sunlight in, it is given its own space—it owns and occupies and moves around the building just as people will. And perhaps is given center stage.
Cloepfil’s walls of glass, his bridal-like screens of trees behind from which peer facades, walls and windows; his wrapping, meshing, and giving of a place all contribute to an experience where we, as his receptive audience and the ultimate user’s of his work, get to “occupy” in the best way possible. The human element is invited to occupy these spaces and places of Cloepfil’s creation, and as Cloepfil explains to flow into, out of and around buildings of concrete, glass, steel, and slate combined in a way that gives us a sense of place, context and of relating to and being connected with our environment. While inside a Cloepfil building are we given a chance to take the pulse of a city, to enjoy the spontaneous energy of a day, to relish the lives of clouds, and the expanse of a environment. His integration of interior and exterior spaces seem to advocate for our recognition of more than ourselves. It is architecture that brazenly requests we look around and notice “place.” While Cloepfil somewhat apologetically referred to “place” as his inspiration and the grounding element in all Allied Works designs, he nonetheless called it an “old fashioned term.” It is “place”, says Cloepfil that gives us the sense of belonging, being connected, and having a perception of existing in the continuity of location. Designing for “place” he says, is absolutely key.
