Pretty interesting interview with Cloepfil. Touches on a bunch of stuff that we've discussed here over the years, even the fact that Nike, with all of its money and power, has made zero architectural contribution to the city.
I've bolded a few things that jumped out at me. I would love to know the backstory to his relationship with the mayor, which obviously is not one of mutual appreciation. Also, his comparison of architecture in NYC vs. PDX really got me thinking...maybe I'm a little too hard on the state of the culture here.
Architect Brad Cloepfil: On architecture, design in Portland, and Allied Works' first creative phase
Published: Wednesday, January 25, 2012, 5:00 PM Updated: Thursday, January 26, 2012, 6:33 AM
D.K. Row, The Oregonian
Architect Brad Cloepfil feels pretty secure that his business won't evaporate even in these dire economic times for architects that have seen building projects disappear.
His acclaimed firm, Allied Works, has survived some turbulent financial periods since it opened in 1994, and it now has offices in New York as well as Portland. What's more, the firm's initial fertile period of production -- 1998-2010 -- was put into glorious perspective with the publication of a weighty tome, "Allied Works Architecture, Brad Cloepfil -- Occupation."
Fifty-five-year-old Cloepfil's story is well-known in Oregon.
In the mid-1990s, the native Oregonian and University of Oregon graduate was a struggling architect whose few projects at that time included the Maryhill Overlook for the Maryhill Museum of Art. Then advertising executive Dan Wieden tapped Cloepfil and Allied Works to design the world headquarters of Wieden + Kennedy. The building became a cornerstone of the Pearl District and launched Cloepfil's career.
Since the building opened in 2000, Cloepfil and Allied have taken on choice projects, designing new buildings or expanding existing ones, with a particular emphasis on art museums: Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Seattle Art Museum, the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, and the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan at 2 Columbus Circle.
The latter became a "cause celebre" among New York intellectuals because of Cloepfil's spiffy rehabilitation of a historic building in a once down-and-out section of midtown Manhattan.
Currently, the firm is working on a design for Canada's National Music Centre in Calgary, Alberta. Locally, it's also renovating the historic building at 511 N.W. Broadway for the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland and new facilities for Sokol-Blosser Winery in Dayton.
On Thursday, Cloepfil is scheduled to be at the Portland Art Museum where executive director Brian Ferriso will interview him about his projects and the state of architectural practice. Cloepfil will sign books after the conversation.
Last week, Cloepfil sat down with The Oregonian to talk about his career. The interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: Whenever you produce a book like the one you did, it means you are looking back from a certain perspective of accomplishment. What do you think your firm has accomplished so far?
A: The majority of architecture culture just puts out books. I mean, if we were to participate in that consumer culture of architecture publications, we would have put a book out six or seven years ago.
But I wanted to wait until we had buildings. We feature one competition in the book and the rest of it is about real projects. That means a lot to me as an architect. I'm of the school of thinking that buildings are propositional, full of ideas, and the true voice of architecture is about buildings, not projects.
Q: You've said the book gave you an opportunity to "feel the work again." What did you mean by that?
A: The book has so much process stuff in it -- drawings, photos, etc. One of the most gratifying things for me is to now see a consistency of conversation among all of the buildings we've done. The buildings are different from one another in terms of materials, scale, the structure.
But there's a common voice in all of the works, a common set of ideas. There's a thread of a pursuit that holds them together. That was the most gratifying thing to feel. There's an integrity to the ideas the buildings are engaged in.
Q: It sounds like you have a very specific idea of the kind of work you want Allied to accomplish. But what is that exactly?
A: Clyfford Still Museum is a kind of summary of the past decade to me. It has a lot of the ideas that we are now pursuing in other projects but not necessarily in the form or level of sophistication -- it's only a $15 million building. It's a modest building in many ways. It was an end piece and therefore the beginning piece for the next period for us.
But to answer your question: I want the firm to be is what it's been -- where we pursue a set of ideas, where we come to a project with a sense of inquiry to try to understand the potential of each project, to address ideas of landscape, place, culture.
Not every project can do all those things, though. You want to come to a project with a sense of inquiry rather than an agenda like many architects today. You want to come to a project with wonder, a sense of possibility and question.
Q: You talk about the importance of "wonder." How do you keep that feeling of wonder alive as the hassles of running a firm located on two coasts takes over?
A: It's always about the work.
Look, Allied Works is still an atelier, a studio place, a mid-size studio. And I say "studio" in that it's not as structured as a lot of architectural practices but less so than most. You have to put a lot of work in the day-to-day because it is a studio. Everyone here is here to do the best creative work possible. There are only a few role players.
But most professional service firms have a lot of role players. There's a reason for that. They facilitate things easier, get things done easier.
I would say we make it harder, and we ask more of the work itself. And in this type of practice, where everyone is a creative, it's harder to execute the work. But, the level of rigor and results speak for themselves.
For example, when Sokol-Blosser called, I was excited. It's a small project. I've wanted to do a winery forever. And it's probably the smallest project in the office right now. But I absolutely love it. Walking out to that site, I'd do anything for those people, to be able to make architecture in that landscape.
Q: What's left on your architectural bucket list, so to speak. What kinds of projects do you want to do?
A: You mean before I quit, walk out the door in disgust? (laughs) Run a bar somewhere, become an urban farmer?
I had an airplane epiphany recently. I realized the breadth of work we've done that no one has seen, no one really knows about. That work is about furniture design, landscape design, graphic design. Any other business with this creative output -- they'd be recognized in different ways.
But I have this parochial pursuit that we're architects and we just do buildings, I just decided to let go of it.
I want people to now see our creative range and exercise our creative potential more. All of those things go to what I want to do next. So we are doing a lot of furniture design, some landscape design -- we're doing all of the landscape design for Sokol Blosser, for example. The whole concept for that project is a landscape one. The building is a result of the landscape concept. We're doing it all.
But I want to be clear it's not about megalomania. We're not trying to rule the world. I just want to grant license to the range of talent here to pursue those things.
Q: I'm curious: Where did that feeling of "letting go" come from on a personal level for you?
A: Architecture is difficult to do well and the singular focus of the past 15 years has produced a beautiful body of work. As we've done that work, we've also had the opportunity to expand our own ideas just in terms of learning -- we've had a chance to work with amazing landscape architects, graphic designers and furniture designers. And so I think the breakthrough for me to allow that kind of license is to first realize we're doing it. Then also ask: Why not take responsibility for doing it?
Q: How have certain buildings you've completed changed in your mind over time?
A: It's interesting. I taught at Washington University in St. Louis recently, so I went to go back to the museum we did there in St. Louis.
I think it's a beautiful, powerful building. I don't walk in and think: "Oh my god. How naive of us. What were we thinking." Still, the range of considerations for us in building style is so much more sophisticated now because we are more sophisticated as a firm -- we can address more things.
I've been working with people for the past 10, 15 years. I mean, those people in my office have become masters at what they do. Everyone involved is operating a higher level, with more confidence and knowledge than 10 years ago.
Q: What project you've done has offered the most satisfaction?
A: As of right now, Clyfford Still Museum, no question.
Q: Because it's a distillation of ideas you've been working on during the past decade?
A: Yes, as a benchmark. For me, it's the most complete piece of architecture we've done. And again, it has modest aspirations. It's a simple building with a powerful presence. Our buildings are like that. Our buildings are quiet but the resonance you feel is bigger than a small building.
Q: You've done a lot of museums. In some regard your firm has been pegged as one that does cultural buildings.
A: That's a real marketing perspective. In other professions, specialization holds true as a rule. If I'm a contract lawyer, I don't do litigation, right?
In architecture, the public thinks of us as being specialists, too. We -- Allied Works -- know a lot about museums. But also we've done Pixar's animation studio. The truth is that architecture relies much less on expertise than other professions. Architects know that but the public doesn't. It keeps the illusion of expertise because that allows them to understand the world better in that way.
Q: You once said people here in Oregon are by nature introverted and that people come and live here not to communicate with the outside world. What did you mean by that?
A: Portland is an introspective city, no question about it. The people who come here come here for the space and time this city and landscape and region allows. It doesn't mean the city doesn't care about community. It does. Cities like New York and Los Angeles, people go there with the express intent to place their work in the public realm. "I want my work to be seen," they would say.
I know architects there spent their energy going to events, fundraisers, openings -- time spent just getting things out into the public realm.
In Oregon, you have the opportunity but you can take things in and sit with them. That act of introspection, then, allows you to reflect the world back in a different way. It's a different process.
Q: Is great architecture being made now? And what qualifies as great architecture?
A: I don't know if I can answer the second question. But I'll take the first one.
I think the most exciting thing right now is the broad range of ideas. You would have to go back 100 years in history to see the range of ideas being explored now -- approaches, ethics, disciplines, ideals. It's exciting. There's probably four or five great architects but also a hundred doing really good work, too.
Q: What qualities do great architects have? And do you think you have those qualities?
A: The work that resonates with me is work where the architecture itself is not the subject. It's beautiful, elegant, provocative. But it's not intended to be self-referential. It exists to bring some kind of enlightenment or understanding to the activity within the building or the environment around it. That's extraordinarily hard to do and something we strive for here.
I would say a great deal of contemporary architecture is absolutely self-referential, and therefore to me, of no interest. It's about the architect.
Q: You once said you wanted to pursue "architecture as research." What does that mean?
A: That's interesting. I would take a different approach on that today.
I've gotten into arguments with the head of unnamed Ivy League institutions where it's been declared by the institution and deans there that building is not considered as research. The important research happens in the academy. The implication is that building is a lesser practice. Which I take complete exception too.
In the context of my current thinking, we do research and building. We research ideas and how they become manifested in buildings. We do a tremendous amount of research here. But it is very different from the so-called pure research of the academy. There is a misconception that architectural execution and ideals are two different things. There's also a lot of work where the buildings are treated only as models of ideas rather than physical things with enduring presences. And those buildings are made without care for craft or structure or detail. They're just models for concepts.
Q: Any post-mortem thoughts, so to speak, on one of your most controversial projects, the building at 2 Columbus Circle?
A: I never felt that the politics of it, even down to the Tom Wolfe article (the writer wrote length an op-ed in The New York Times arguing against a remodel of the building), was about design. It was about everyone in New York taking a political/social position. It was a lot of people strutting their position, sometimes at my expense but mostly not. It was fashionable to take a position but not without much merit.
In the end, the museum is wildly successful, and beautiful. So, no, this is not revisionist memory here. I mean, the most difficult thing was some board members who got out of hand, the budget issues and all those things that are more about ensuring the integrity of the building itself. That was a much bigger battle than all of this other stuff.
Q: You once said if you're a client who wants a big statement for a building then they shouldn't hire your firm.
A: Oh wow. I disagree with that now, too.
What I was really speaking to is that if you want pure image -- building as a big sign of itself, like various other museums which can be located in Denver (Cloepfil is referring to the expansion of the Denver Art Museum designed by Daniel Liebeskind). The Clyfford Still Museum is a tremendous statement. It's an absolute counterpoint to the (nearby) Denver Art Museum and therefore sets up a radical dialogue, I think.
Q: But isn't there always an element of showmanship in architecture?
A: Not in what I do. I mean, with the National Music Center project, we had conversations amongst ourselves that it had to be more extroverted because it represents the heritage of the nation. That's different from what it communicates as a city museum. Those are different roles.
As a building for, again, a nation, it has to have more symbolic and monumental presence. It has to assert itself more, to hold that place in the iconography of architecture.
Q: You've done serious stuff all over the country. But little here since the Wieden building. What gives?
A: That's a good question for other people more than myself. But I have two answers.
One is we got to do the Maryhill Museum, which is our most recognized piece here. We then got to do Wieden + Kennedy, which is a profoundly beautiful piece of architecture. So I think the work we began with here could only happen here, could only have happened with the confidence of Dan Wieden, could only have happened with a crazy architect walking out to the director of Maryhill Museum and saying, 'I have a crazy idea.'
I mean, the license and freedom and optimism of this place gave us our start.
But I also think the opportunities here are less for everyone. We don't have 20 Fortune 500 companies with the subsequent cultural support that brings. There's a modesty of means to Portland, not that you need lots of money. But there isn't the opportunity for projects to make those kinds of cultural statements.
At the same time, what's optimistic is that we are working with the Pacific Northwest College of Art and Sokol Blosser. I think the work we do for Sokol Blosser will change the architectural culture of the wine industry in Portland. I think that building will be that important.
Q: There's a perception that many powerful developers in town don't hire the best designers and instead hire "service" firms.
A: I have a couple of responses to that.
One is that I don't think it's true. Holst Architecture did some interesting buildings when they were just four or five people. Thomas Hacker's done buildings. I think some of the best in town have done buildings.
So I am being absolutely sincere about this. In fact, Lisa (Strausfeld, Cloepfil's domestic partner and mother of one of his daughters) comments on this all of the time when she's here: The quality of architecture in Portland is so much higher than that of New York City. It's undeniably true. You go to the Pearl District and see the quality of those buildings and see the quality of buildings on Sixth Avenue or Chelsea in New York -- no question that Portland is of a higher quality.
But Portland lacks the spectacular building or the historically important piece of architecture. There's risk-taking in New York. But to take that risk you have to get that return, right? You miss it on one project, you can make it up with another.
Again, I go back to this issue: If there was more money here, you might not see more risk but a higher level of exploration. Look at the Pearl District. That's a beautiful neighborhood. Show me another city that has a neighborhood with that kind of thoughtfulness.
Q: Seems you are talking about where the next Dan Wiedens might be? Someone who sees design as a good business decision?
A: That's a great question. I don't know the answer. I don't know why Nike for instance doesn't spawn innovation in architecture. Ziba has played its role -- it hired John (Holmes, a principal at Holst). It's really about how a company sees themselves.
What I like is that people are so critical. That's the thing. Everyone is so hard on the Pearl. It's because we care so deeply. We want more and want the best.
Another way of looking at it is that the people who do those kinds of buildings and residences are people who care about culture deeply. And they care that their company participates in that level of dialogue. That's rare. Here or anywhere else.
Q: How would you tell the next mayor of Portland how to improve design in this city?
A: I tried to play this role unsuccessfully here with the current administration.
The Bloomberg administration (of Mayor Mike Bloomberg) in New York is a model for everyone to see. Their design excellence programs, development incentives, the way they have worked to elevate the conversation of architecture from libraries in Queens to parks systems -- I would say the greatest successes in New York City have been a result of that administration.
Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but it happened under that administration's era. And it's government driven but not necessarily government funded. The support, infrastructure, the methodology to select architects by the city and planning offices, and all those things, they are processes any city can do. It doesn't take money. It takes will.
But a mayor and government has to feel the cultural expression of their city is important. And I just don't think we have that here. It would be wonderful.
Q: Many local architects see you as a leader here because you are the biggest name nationally. They may want to see you in a more leadership capacity. Is that fair to ask and possible?
A: In what role?
Q: As an advocate.
A:
I would love to be one. It's just where and how. Again, I tried with this current mayor. I offered some assistance in the conversation because I care so deeply about this place but it was not part of what they wanted to do here. I've worked in so many cities, communities and with so many civic and private leaders, I've learned a tremendous amount from that.
Fundamentally, the aspiration should be this: Work with the best people, whether you have $5,000 or $5 million. It doesn't matter. You can do that. It's not about money. You have to find the appropriate people and define the project correctly.
Look at the OHSU tram project as an example. I was asked to help define it in the beginning. But the budget was so poorly defined I got out. I'm not going to invite my friends to go after this thing when you haven't set it up right.
In the end, the budget, what, tripled? You have to do your homework and be smart and realistic. This is not rocket science.
Q: With Lisa living in New York and your office being so active there, too, do you have any plans to move to New York?
A: I have no plans now for a permanent move. I love the air, the light, the silence of Oregon. I need it. It's in my blood.
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