"[Pioneer
Place] singlehandedly has changedthe face of retailing in
the downtown area."
-- Les Prentice, Portland Development Commision
"The Pioneer
Place expansion will infuse renewed spirit into the heart
of our city." --Mayor Vera Katz .
In the Houston suburbs where I was raised, the flat horizon
of America's most reckless boomtown was blanketed with shopping
malls. Shopping was about bigness, betterness and the audacity
to build temples of buying where one could find air-conditioned
respite from the hell of subtropical heat. In Houston, all
roads lead to shopping malls.
So take this transplanted Texan's word for it, Portland's
newest shopping experience at Pioneer Place II fails to
awaken my latent suburban shopping desires. It also does
little to satisfy my craving for unique public spaces, which
is what attracted me to Portland in the first place.
The Rouse Company's much-anticipated expansion of Pioneer
Place is like most of the shopping malls that rose and fell
in my hometown's tumultuous economy, yet somehow, in the
epicenter of Portland's prized downtown core, it is being
praised as a critical success by civic leaders. Sure, Pioneer
Place achieves all of its private-sector goals. It is a
systematically programmed zone of retail in its parent company's
portfolio of profitable developments. For Portland citizens,
Pioneer Place represents another in a recent series of missed
opportunities. Like it or not, our premier downtown mall
could be dropped into any Texan suburb.
My journey into the labyrinth of Pioneer Place II started
on the fourth floor of the original Pioneer Place. Things
looked promising when I entered the passage to the new addition
and encountered an installation by local artist Sean Healy.
Co-sponsored by Rouse Co. and the Regional Arts and Culture
Council, Healy's Little Golden Hallway is paneled
with yellow plates of translucent glass punctuated by clear
portholes magnifying images of urban life. Healy's turn-of-the-century
mythos shapes itself in the work's entombed images of everyday
situations that make me wonder if modern life hasn't already
become a memory that we cling to, hesitant of what lies
ahead.
Hesitating no longer, I entered the sky bridge. This is
a classic example of what happens when bad architecture
happens to good spaces. While it does achieve the functional
goal of connecting the buildings, it is otherwise pointless.
An underground passageway already links the new building
with the old via a fiberoptic-lit hallway. It is interesting
to note that the sky bridge was staunchly opposed by the
American Institute of Architects' Portland chapter. But
during the design approval process, Rouse Co. persuaded
the city to honor its 10-year-old agreement to allow its
construction. As built, the sky bridge is uninteresting
to view from the street and even less interesting to cross,
and it contradicts city policy. The glass-enclosed structure
also offers the dubious bonus of roasting shoppers in the
afternoon sun. During my visit, one gentleman stopped midway
through to exclaim, "Damn, it's hot up here!"
Emerging flushed from the skyway, I work my way into the
new building and past the lunch crowd lining up for the
$13 sushi buffet at the new Japanese restaurant, Todai.
The huge dining room wraps around much of the fourth floor
and resembles a Pokémon-ruled undersea kingdom on
acid.
I continue my tour, easing into the sun-drenched atmosphere
as New-Age Muzak carries me along a downward escalator.
There I catch my first view of the centerpiece of the atrium:
a two-story fiberglass, brushed steel and water sculpture
designed by San Francisco-based graphics firm Sussman/Prejza.
The work, which resembles a bouquet of golf clubs, is a
testament to the desperation of public art and rivals the
giant tree bolted to the exterior of the nearby ODS mausoleum
for pure ridiculousness. Large, mauve-hued petals rest atop
poles that pierce the floor below; water runs down the lower
half of each pole's exterior, trickling over the odes to
roses in history, science and literature that are grafted
onto the outer skin. Aside from the predictable Rose City
motif, the whole contraption lacks any other meaning in
its surroundings. Fortunately, meaning was found by one
concerned passerby who wryly observed, "I hope they've got
insurance for the poor guy who ruptures a disk when he slips
on all that water on the floor." Rest assured, the full-time
mopping crew keeps things dry.
Turning my attention to the new tenants of the mall, I
find that the few really interesting stores are too costly
for modest budgets, and the rest are typically boring. A
roundabout grouping of Cutter and Buck, American Eagle Outfitters,
Eddie Bauer and Banana Republic attests to the uninspired
collection of khaki-and-polo-shirt retailers present. It's
true that Portland doesn't have a market that can sustain
high-end boutiques like Gucci, Issey Miyake and others of
the international set, but getting just the right mix of
chain stores can't possibly be the answer. We need to fill
in the gaps downtown (no pun intended) with independent
shops that sell diverse products in close proximity. Let's
find a way to mix things up so that we can shop for locally
grown produce and imported salami a few steps from where
we'll find faux patent-leather boots made by entrepreneurial
hipsters, avant-garde urban compost bins and high-tech wristwatches
that emit simulated sunlight.
Good public centers should do their best to connect pedestrians
inside with the street activity outside. Pioneer Place makes
that effort clear with its tall glass entrances and skylit
central atriums, but it also contradicts its intended purpose
with an underground passage and glass skyway that enable
shoppers to avoid the outdoors altogether. Additionally,
instead of making the most of its atriums' open spaces,
Pioneer Place becomes two almost identical enclosures that
trap pedestrians with escalators and the repetition of store,
railing, store, railing. Everywhere the spaces are filled
with fixtures and ornamentation inspired by the historical
pastiche of postmodern design. Pioneer Place II is brand
new, but like its companion across the street, it is already
an anachronism.
Pioneer Place's repeated reference to Gertrude Stein's
dictum "a rose is a rose is a rose" becomes a mantra of
the shopping center's own redundancy: A mall is a mall is
a mall. Is another Laura Ashley knockoff what we Portlanders
hope for in shaping our distinctive urban landscape?
Downtown is a great place to be, thanks to the city's planning
successes. Here we must demand that ambitious developers
turn local retailer Norm Thompson's credo into a reality:
Let's escape from the ordinary.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Willamette Week | originally
published April 12,
2000
|
