by Alison Hicks | Jun 15, 2023
(University of Oregon Campus – Jordan Schnitzer Musem of Art West Entrance & Facade)
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) located on the University of Oregon campus was designed by Ellis Lawrence and completed in 1933. Adjacent to the Knight Library and home of the Marche Cafe, the JSMA serves as a hub for connections with history through art and architecture. The grand entrance to the museum opens from the Memorial Quad to the lobby. As you pass the main reception area, you are transported into a hidden courtyard lined with colonnades on either side of the fountain and garden which sits in the center. This brick enclosure features an alcove with golden mosaic tiles that complete a small dome at the far end of the courtyard. This highly detailed and ornate courtyard contrasts the more modern interior gallery spaces which house the majority of the museum’s collections and exhibitions. The interior features a variety of materials, both historic and modern, which help the space capture a unique balance between the past and the present. As a center for learning for both the community and students at the University of Oregon, the JSMA is a landmark on the University of Oregon campus. (1)
Despite Eugene being one of the top cities with a large population of unhoused people in Oregon, Eugene uses hostile architecture to specifically exclude unhoused people from using certain spaces. While the University of Oregon is a public campus, as a college campus, the priority lies in the student population and a high quality of education. Because of this, there are certain spaces reserved for students, paying visitors, and academic purposes only. While the grand but uncovered entrance and hard seating may be considered unjust exclusion and hostile towards unhoused people, the fact remains that an art museum is a place for learning for all, but does not need to serve as a shelter from the weather or a comfortable chair after a long day of walking.
While some would argue that as a public space, the JSMA should be a welcoming shelter, the furniture actually reflects the function of the space. As a fellow student describes, “It’s a very public space, yet the architecture and design within and around the building suggest otherwise…there is minimal to no furniture for sitting in any portion of the museum…The furniture choices and lack thereof all indicate a sense of urgency and unwelcomeness in the space, by not allowing users to feel comfortable and create their own sense of purpose for the place.”(2) I would argue that rather than being a form of hostility towards unhoused populations, the furniture in the space is actually just a temporary rest for users to continue walking around the different exhibits. This speaks more to the nature of an art museum having an active use rather than a sedentary use. Another classmate claims that it is the idea of surveillance which deters unhoused people from entering the space. “The Museum’s front doors are propped open, but a visitor must walk up steps. These steps act as the first natural barrier of entry…That uncertain visitor must also pass through a large foyer where they are watched the entire length by the employee. This employee has the final say about who can come and who may not enter…Not everyone is wanted here.”(3) And while the idea of security originates from the idea of keeping certain people out, the public must pay a fee to enter the museum therefore necessitating that someone be there at the front as a form of reception, payment, and direction to the various exhibits.
View of entrance into the JSMA
Some call the JSMA “rigid” and “hostile” in regards to the courtyards and privatized spaces.(4) However, I actually see both the interior courtyard and the courtyard seating for the Marche Cafe to be moments of oasis and escape from the busy nature of the rest of campus. Art is meant to transport the viewer to a different time and space, feel deep emotions, contemplate thoughts. I believe these spaces are moments of refuge for users to escape Eugene and be transported to an enclosed Italian courtyard or a tropical but brick courtyard. I argue that for the unhoused population, these spaces, which are completely public but have a sense of privacy, are far more welcoming to unhoused people than walking through the silent, pristine exhibits. When the Marche courtyard is in use, the furniture, which can be moved around and withstand the varying weather, allows people to shape smaller spaces within the otherwise rectangular and open courtyard.
Courtyard exterior of the JSMA.
JSMA interior courtyard with fountain.
Additionally, the benches both outside and inside do not use hostile designs to prevent users from laying down. Each bench is long and wide to accommodate people and their bags and for them to sit how they would like, facing towards various pieces of art or views. Despite not being the comfortable seats that some would like to linger in, the seating serves the purpose of providing rest for a moment before moving on. And that is what I believe the JSMA does for not only the unhoused population, but the community at large – providing a moment of rest from this time and place for a moment before moving forward.
(1) Hicks, Alison, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, WordPress, Week 2 (2) hpeters4, Can I Stay Awhile?, WordPress (3) lsmith21, Stay in Your Lane: the design decisions governing people in offices and museums, WordPress (4) cmoten, Save Me a Seat?, WordPress
by Alison Hicks | May 30, 2023
Whole Foods Market Entry with covered areas, a distinct main entry, and a trellis for a welcoming exterior atmosphere.
As mentioned in my last post, architecture can sometimes use metal elements to prevent unhoused people from sleeping or “loitering” around buildings. In James Petty’s commentary on “Hostile Architecture,” he discusses the idea of fortified architecture and ways that architects can manipulate and discipline groups of people through environmental mechanisms. This violent architecture can often be ignored as disguised metal aesthetic elements but really prevent people from laying down on a flat covered surface. However, sometimes the mechanisms are seen in the form of spikes as very obvious dwelling or loitering prevention strategies. Unfortunately, this hostility is often ignored and/or accepted by most people. However, people with the most problems with these devices are concerned with the urban aesthetics more than how it actually makes the unhoused population feel unwanted and further as outcasts. The concern then becomes the wide acceptance of violent tactics such as these and the ways they perpetuate socio-political and cultural forms of oppression and exclusion from society.
In contrast, the Whole Foods Market in Eugene creates outdoor atmospheres for all. Located near Downtown and considered one of the most upscale grocery stores in the area, one would expect to see hostile architecture and mechanisms outside its doors. However, Whole Foods actually creates environments for people to spend time outside the store. With awnings, trellises, abundant seating, many bike racks, and beautiful landscaping for moments of view and shade, the Whole Foods Market emphasizes the space’s ability to host people. The primarily wood exterior emphasizes a welcoming, home-like environment and even the windows start about 2 feet off of the ground to allow some privacy to both those outside and inside. Overall, despite the prices not being welcoming to all, the architecture of Whole Food Market in Eugene allows people to dwell in the built environment in a variety of ways, regardless of their status or the rainy weather.
by Alison Hicks | May 17, 2023
Meraki Coffee Co. has a variety of furniture but all are metal frame chairs and similar in size.
In “If the Chair Fits: Sexism in American Office Furniture Design,” Kaufmann-Buhler discusses the history and perpetuation of idealized and gendered furniture in office environments. From the advent of the white collar office environments, hierarchy was embedded into office designs but, Kaufmann-Buhler argues, even the embrace of the open plan office resulted in gendered hierarchy. The elimination of individual offices reduced the hierarchy of space but the desks maintained a certain status associated with the task and person sitting at that desk. Even the chairs, which she argues embody the human form, hold a “class” to them. These “classes” of chairs include the executive chair, made for a man, and the secretarial chair, made for a woman. This also led to the design of such pieces to position a woman as a beautiful object within the space rather than focusing on the comfort while doing the work. The root of these gendered pieces of furniture was the type of task associated with one gender. But even as more women have entered various industries of office work as executives and employees and not just secretaries, the perpetuation of gendered furniture has remained due to the long-lasting nature of office furniture.
In Meraki Coffee Co., a cafe in Downtown Eugene, the chairs and furniture within the space have only a small variety to accommodate different sizes of users. While this could be a purely aesthetic choice for consistency throughout the space, the lack of variety results in an exclusion of certain groups of people. Especially being metal framed chairs, comfort is not the highest priority, which may be intentional to prevent users from staying within the space for very long. This tactic is seen in design, especially in places with higher populations of unhoused people. As an architectural move, oftentimes metal elements are used to prevent unhoused people from sleeping or “loitering” in and around buildings. As a cafe in Downtown Eugene, Meraki has a higher potential for the unhoused population to come in for warmth, use the facilities, and get something to eat or drink. And even though the furniture selection could likely be based solely on aesthetics, it comes to question the exclusionary effects of furniture towards specific groups of people.
by Alison Hicks | May 9, 2023
The large room contains moments of privacy with desks, computers, and very few views to the outside or other rooms.
With regards to the drastic change from traditional to modern dwelling interiors, Hilde Heynen discusses the utter lack of sense of home in modern interiors. The emphasis on transparency, openness, flexibility, and masculinity of modern architecture inherently contradicted and diminished the existing qualities of home: privacy, enclosure, the rituals and patterns of daily life, and femininity. Victorian and other historical interiors were often associated with the woman and her sentimentality and domesticity. Modern architects criticized this as unsensible and projected the need for masculinity through spaces which removed the sentimentality for the sake of man’s ‘progress.’ This radical change to bare modern interiors, Heynen argues, rejects the idea of the rituals, messiness, and personality of everyday life, which led to a ‘homelessness’ crisis – a complete lack of what evokes the feeling of home to the point where there no longer exists a home. A frightening connection became that of the modern interior and Russian novyi byt – the idea of a new domesticity which rejected the nuclear family, the home, and culture in its entirety. The lack of distinction between public and private areas was glorified by both the Russians and modernists but ultimately strips humans from identifying spaces for different behaviors and comfort and results in the loss of home.
As a public space, the Knight Library is successful in distinguishing itself as a large public space, different in comfort than a dwelling would provide. However, the Library serves as a sort of dwelling for many people. Some would say jokingly that many students “live in the library” as an exaggeration of the amount of time some students spend studying. But there’s another population of users that you could say dwell in the Knight Library. As a public resource filled with computers, printers, books, and other tools, the Library serves a homeless population who can carry out the rituals of daily life within the space. With bathrooms, a quiet environment, warmth, comfortable furniture, many nooks to hide away in for hours, and people focused on their book or laptop, it becomes a place for dwelling in a way many other public spaces cannot become. Many people find it a beautiful and comfortable place to be with spaces to make your own for the time that you occupy them. People can set up at a desk and mark their territory with their things and avoid the noises of the street and the bitterness of the rain and cold. In addition to this, the little transparency between rooms and even to the outside allows the Library to become a private dwelling of sorts.
Works Cited
Heynen, Hilde. 2009. “‘Leaving Traces’: Anonymity in the Modernist House.”, edited by Clive Edwards, Trevor Keeble, Penny Sparke, and Anne Massey, 22:119–28. Oxford; New York.