Making an Entrance
The Oregonian, Mar 07, 2004 - by Randy Gragg
Timberline Lodge is one of Oregon's -- and the country's -- masterpieces of lodge architecture. But for nine months out of the year, the WPA-built, National Historic Landmark is like a noble face wearing a funny nose: the corrugated steel Quonset hut that serves as the snow entrance.
Call the lack of a proper snow entrance at the nation's only year-round ski resort an oversight by the original six-member U.S. Forest Service architectural team. Or call it lack of inspiration by anybody running the lodge since the Quonset hut was installed in the '50s. But it would be hard to think of an uglier first experience of a greater building.
Time for the hut to finally go, says the lodge's steward of aesthetics, the Friends of Timberline Lodge. In February, longtime member Tom Johnson organized an architectural competition for a new snow entrance . On Thursday, the Friends announced the winner: a snow entrance that will look like a snowdrift.
Conceived by two of the city's more dynamic designers -- Peter Nylen and Ean Eldred of NE Works -- the entrance promises a blend of beauty, fun and sophistication. To be built out of computer-cut curves of aluminum channels supporting a double skin of translucent, high-strength Lexan plastic, the entrance will take the form of wavy, 20-foot-high parabolic arches.
Some members of the five-person jury are anticipating controversy.
"I worry about the couple from Kansas visiting the lodge only once," said Jeff Jaqua, Forest Service archaeologist and preservation specialist.
For the jury members, who ranged from historic preservationists to Portland artist Henk Pander, the design was the only one of 22 entries to make everybody's top-three list on the first vote. Jury member Kingston Heath, head of the University of Oregon's historic preservation program, likened it to Joseph Paxton's 1851 Crystal Palace in London. Another juror, Timberline curator Linny Adamson, thought the entrance 's "creative spirit" recalled John Yeon's 1930s-era avant-garde design -- never built -- for a Timberline ski hut.
The winner is "a design I'd never support as permanent," said juror Anthony Veerkamp of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "But it's the one that will end up on the cover of Travel & Leisure magazine."
Nylen and Eldred's proposed entrance vestibule promises the eerie translucency of a snow cave with the airiness of a Gothic cathedral. Made of 30-inch sections that will be bolted together, the curvilinear entrance will recall the layering of the mountain's glaciers and the lines of a topographic map, while lending its lightweight parts to quick and easy assembly.
The competition was for concepts only. Now, all Nylen and Eldred have to figure out is how much it will cost to build. The two are best known for their public artworks on the Eastbank Esplanade, made when they were members of the now-disbanded collective Rigga. They've already figured out the engineering with the veteran firm John Parkinson Engineering.
Although Nylen says it's too early to guess at a budget, "we tried to be as economical with the materials as possible," he said.
For 29 years, the Friends group has raised the money for high-ticket items that lodge operator RLK and Company's annual fees to the Forest Service don't cover, such as restoring artworks, replacing custom-woven drapes and upholstery and creating guides to the building and art. Most recently the group completed a $200,000 "Light the Lodge" campaign, hiring Richard Spies to design new custom fixtures fabricated by George King to replace the '70s-era lights in the halls and meeting rooms.
The 21 other entries offered a vast spectrum of solutions, from huge stone and timber structures to architect David Wark's proposal of installing a heat-pump and water-reclamation system to simply melt the snow away from the entrance .
Nylen and Eldred picked up $5,000 for first prize. With a simple tent of Teflon-coated fabric rising from a base lined with ski-equipment racks and stacked firewood, Hennebery Eddy Architects won the $2,500 second prize.
"It's what I admire about the profession of architecture," UO's Heath said. "Someone can come along and see the universe in an entirely different way. This design solves the problem in an unusually energetic way."