Why doesn’t Portland—unlike Seattle, Minneapolis and San Francisco—have new projects by world-famous architects?
Randy Rapaport: The last really good building done at that level was the Art Museum in 1932. And they had a hard time with that because of similar issues—namely, not wanting to be bold. Then, when the Portland Building was built [in 1982], the city got hurt. It’s a selfish building. It doesn’t feel good inside. Michael Graves didn’t do well on the interior. It was a failure. This idea of celebrity architects: There’s distaste because we tried it once and it didn’t work. Doesn’t that make us less dynamic? Look at the history of Portland. In the old days, if you wanted to go for it, you went to San Francisco or Seattle. Cities have a tone of what they were 100 years ago. Portland, for example, was a lumber city and not that dynamic. The brightest moment that Portland ever had was in 1905 when we had the World’s Fair. That was our last great moment. Is it fair to say you’re a gentrifying force? When the first artist moves into a neighborhood, or a gay couple—that’s when gentrification beg
