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Old Posted Mar 7, 2007, 4:27 PM
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Finnish designers prod Portland to lighten up

Finnish lecturers look to enlighten Portland designers
Daily Journal of Commerce
by Justin Stranzl
03/07/2007


A pair of Finnish designers will visit Portland today to talk daylighting and electrical lighting opportunities that Oregon, they’ll argue, should take advantage of.

The duo, architect Hannu Tikka and lighting designer Julle Oksanen, are guest lecturers this semester at the University of Oregon in Eugene, the campus of which Oksanen isn’t particularly fond.

“There are things here which are completely against architectural rhythm,” he said last week. “I don’t know. These university buildings are awful.”

Oksanen guided lighting efforts for the Helsinki-Vantaa airport in Finland and opera houses in Turkey and Norway and said a desire for dramatic, intelligent lighting systems was encouraged from the projects’ outset.

And he’s formed a partnership, “Light & Space Academy, The Finnish Traveling University,” with fellow lecturer Tikka that travels internationally and encourages students and design professionals, he said, to “integrate” lighting into building design from a project’s start.

That integration is what the Eugene campus lacks, Oksanen said. That’s the case in Portland as well, he said, a city that’s vibrant and full of good architecture, he said, but that could better celebrate its buildings with whiter street-level lighting, glowing storefronts and smartly lit office towers.

“Portland’s beautiful,” he said. “We were there at night, and there was a spirit. There’s a soul on the street. It was dark and the views are beautiful. We walked to Jake’s Famous Crawfish and the flavor of architecture was very nice. But the city has its problems. It’s just yellow light everywhere.”

Portland’s plan to light its bridges at night – which began Feb. 14 with the illumination of the Morrison Bridge – is a good start, Oksanen said. But without a “master plan” that calls for complementary lighting of nearby streets and the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, the city’s not pushing far enough.

“You have to make a good master plan and concept and after that analysis you can do what you like,” he said. “Bridges are nice. They’re beautiful elements connecting both sides of the city, but you need to do more than that.”

Oksanen and Tikka will speak at 5:30 p.m. today at the University of Oregon Portland Center, 722 S.W. Second Ave. The lecture is free. For more information, call 541-346-3656.
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