Press Release: July 12th, 2010
Big Pipe Portal receives award at national conference
Americans for the Arts (AFTA), the nation’s leading arts advocacy organization, has recognized a Portland public artwork as one of the year’s 40 best. “Big Pipe Portal: Making the Invisible Visible,” by the interdisciplinary design group, rhiza A+D received the distinction at the annual AFTA Public Art Network conference held in Baltimore, MD, June 24-25. The project, dedicated in May of 2009, was partially funded with percent for art dollars associated with above-ground construction for the Bureau of Environmental Services’ Big Pipe Project.
The 40 public art projects that were selected represent 29 cities in 15 states, and all are included in AFTA’s 2010 Public Art Network annual Year in Review. The artworks reflect exemplary, innovative permanent or temporary public art works created or debuted in 2009. This year’s review, unveiled at the conference in front of 200 public art administrators from across the country, was curated by two independent artists, Fred Wilson and Helen Lessick, from nearly 390 entries. In choosing Big Pipe Portal, Lessick stated, “I was impressed with this project's remarkable articulation of infrastructure. The fluid and square forms echo the flow and power of the river. The piece works as a portal, place, and metaphor, a sculpture changing our perspective and awareness of urban industrial forces too often ignored.”
Event: March 17th, 2010
Presentation and launch of design for Performance Works Northwest's new mixed use theater, flexible studio and artist-in- residence facility
Located in the SE Foster neighboorhood, the proposed new PWNW facility is an open light filled "industrial-type" space for making and presenting contemporary performance works. The expansion will provide 4,500 square feet of flexible performance space, mulit-use studio and artist's residence.
Event: Feburary 6th, 2010
NUNAVUT: A Performance for the Portland Art Museum's Young Patrons Third Annual Beaux-Arts Ball. By rhiza A+D in collaboration with performance artist and dancer Linda Austin
Based on an imagined trip of mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose to the Canadian Arctic Archipelago Territory of Nunavut.
Event: 3:45 pm Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
Timberline Lodge New Winter Entrance Dedication
Please join us at the dedication ceremony for the new Timberline Lodge Winter Entrance. The celebration is open to the public.
Dedication, 03 October, 2009
Press Release: September 3rd, 2009
rhiza A+D provides new Winter Entrance to Oregon's Historic WPA-Built Timberline Lodge
Portland, Ore. – (September 3rd, 2009) When October’s first snow falls on Mt. Hood, Timberline Lodge will sport an eye-catching new visitors’ entrance designed by Portland’s rhiza A+D. The graceful reticulated structure, like a snowdrift blown against the National Historic Landmark’s massive masonry façade, will be assembled at the onset of each year’s snow season and disassembled the following spring.
Under light powder the illuminated portal will glow like a lantern. But once the snow starts piling up, the lantern will morph into a snug contemporary igloo, able to stand up to the formidable snow and wind loads encountered on Mount Hood.
“The arch is the two-dimensional symbol for shelter. Spin that arch in three dimensions and you have an igloo," says rhiza A+D partner Ean Eldred. "In its relationship to landscape, resources, and the fundamental human need for protection from the elements, the igloo is a profoundly elegant design."
The entry is formed from a series of parabolic arches, with profiles waterjet-cut from half-inch-thick aluminum plate. Each profile is interlaced with continuously welded ribs supporting a double skin of translucent polycarbonate panels which are lightweight, durable and replaceable. After each spring’s disassembly, the arches will be stored off site to extend their lifespan.
"It will be an icon next to an existing icon" said Joachim Grube, co-founder and principal of Yost Grube Hall Architecture and President of Friends of Timberline, a group dedicated to the 1937 building’s preservation. “It's really the only design that could do justice to this venerable structure.”
The new entrance joins the legacy of giving, volunteerism and collaboration that is the cornerstone of Timberline Lodge.
Top: rendering at dusk and bottom left: interior of model, photo by rhiza A+D.
Bottom right: interior of model, photo by Jim Golden Studio.
Event: 4:30 thru 6:00 pm, Thursaday, September 24th, 2009
Big Pipe Portal Public Art Celebration at 4299 N. Port Center Way*, Portland, Ore.
Dedication Procession, 24 September, 2009
- Music by The Bristlecones who will lead a parade to the sculpture @ 4:30 pm.
- Tour the Swan Island Pump Station. Go 165 ft. underground to see the inner workings of the Big Pipe.
- Walk the Greenway Trail. Learn about the area's wildlife and history of the trail (approx. 1 mile).
*Direction heading North from downtown: head East on Broadway Bridge and turn right on Interstate Avenue. Turn slight left on N. Greeley Ave. Take ramp toward Swan Island Industrial Park. Merge onto N. Going. Turn left at first stoplight onto N. Port Center Way.
Event starts on the trail directly southof the Fedex truck parking lot. Follow signs for event parking near the site.
Funded by Percent for Art, Bureau of Environmental Services. Celebration presented by:
View looking to river through Big Pipe Portal
Press Release: September 3rd, 2009
rhiza A+D creates new sculpture celebrating Portland's Big Pipe Project
Eldred, says the sculpture is also intended as a ceremonial entrance to the river, which he calls "our shared identity." The art council's Peggy Kendellen, who managed the project, says the sculpture is the only public art planned for the Big Pipe project.
Although the Big Pipe Project is the one of the largest infrastructure project in Portland history, it is largely invisible. Working closely with the Bureau of Environmental Services and the Regional Arts and Culture Council,
rhiza A + D created the "Big Pipe Portal" sculpture to celebrate this hidden work by revealing and re-adapting massive pre-cast concrete segments and steel reinforcing used in the construction of the Big Pipe.
"From the beginning, the real impulse was to make something that manifests the scale of the pipe, this massive hidden infrastructure," says Ean Eldred
These pieces of infrastructure are now put to work in support of art and narrative. Emerging from the river's embankment, the sculpture traces the circumference of the hidden pipe and transforms it from an industrial artifact into a woven arch of currents and eddies.
View looking to river through Big Pipe Portal