U.S. Bancorp Tower, Portland, Oregon
From Archiplanet
| U.S. Bancorp Tower | |
| Designer | SOM |
| Location | Portland, Oregon, USA |
| Date | 1978 to 1983 |
| Building Type | Skyscraper |
| Construction System | steel, glass, granite |
| Climate | Cold Temperate |
| Context | Urban |
| Architectural Style | Modern |
| Street Address | |
| Notes | also known as US Bank Tower, The Rose Tower, and Big Pink. The building's rosy champagne color also gave rise to nicknames referencing champagne bottles. |
Contents |
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| Building Details | |
| Client | U.S. Bank Corp. |
| Cost | 128 Million (1983 US Dollars) |
| Area | 1.1 Million square feet |
| Stories | 42 |
| Height | 536 feet |
| Program | bank offices, shopping center, restaurant. |
The U.S. Bancorp Tower is the second-tallest skyscraper in Portland, Oregon. The building was designed by the U.S. Architecture Firm Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, with design consultation from Portland architect Pietro Belluschi.
The tower and an adjacent two-story shopping center occupy a superblock at the north edge of southwest Portland, also known as downtown Portland. The superblock is bounded by these streets:
- To the north by Burnside St.
- To the south by SW Oak St.
- To the west by 6th Ave.
- To the east by 5th Ave.
The joint between the tower's base and the adjacent shopping center is in line with SW Pine, whose length is made discontinuous by the superblock. As a result of blocking off Pine St, the building maintains 24-hour pedestrian access through this joint between the two components of the building, which also serves as the main entry vestibule.
The building's plan is a diamondoid parallelogram whose angles are informed by the non-perpendicular intersection of the generally north-south-running street grid in downtown (Southwest) Portland, with the generally east-west-running Burnside St. The southern shopping center mass has a trapezoid shape in plan, with its southern-most edge pulling away from SW Oak St at the southwest corner. As a result a small plaza is formed in front of the south entry into the shopping center.
"Could anyone have envisioned such a play of light and color with glass and granite? If anyone could, it was the 'light-thrower' himself, Belluschi. 'The windows have a threshold value," the architect explained. "At a certain level of light, the panes reflect light. But just beneath this threshold value, the panes darken. It is a binary phenomenon–all or none. But the granite reflects light as well. Under some conditions the granite is darker than the glass, and in others vice versa ... there isa critical dialogue between the two surfaces.' " - Frozen Music
[edit] US Bancorp Tower at Wikipedia
US Bancorp Tower
The US Bancorp Tower is the second tallest skyscraper in Portland, Oregon. It stands at 536 feet (163 m) with 42 floors. The building has nearly 1.1 million square feet (69,000 m²) of office space inside, making it the largest office building in Oregon in terms of volume, and the second tallest building in Oregon, with only the Wells Fargo Center exceeding its height.
Construction of the building was undertaken by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) with Pietro Belluschi as a consultant. The tower opened in 1983 with construction costs of $128 million.Designs as varied as uses of city's newer buildings. The Oregonian, February 19 1990. At first the building served as the national headquarters of U.S. Bancorp, then the regional headquarters of that organization after a 1997 merger moved the corporate offices to Minneapolis, Minnesota. U.S. Bancorp has leased until 2015.
Perhaps the most unusual features of the building are its shape and color. Pietro Belluschi was most concerned about the play of light and shadows on its surface; meanwhile, the SOM team had to work with a uniquely shaped lot due to the street grid. The meshing of these two concerns led to what has been called Portland's most dynamic building. Because of the street grid, the tower features no right angles in its parallelogram footprint. This, in turn, makes it look either extremely slender or wide depending upon your viewing angle. Belluschi carefully selected the glass and granite for the exterior facing. The windows can absorb or reflect light depending upon how much light is upon them, while the surrounding granite may appear darker or lighter than the window pieces depending upon the time of day. The building can be described as being pink, orange, purple, or even gray all in the same day. The unusual pinkish color earned the building the nickname "Big Pink", after an album by The Band.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the top floors held the headquarters of Louisiana-Pacific.
Since a $4 million renovation in 2002, the thirtieth floor of the tower has been occupied by the Portland City Grill, Portland's top-grossing restaurant. It is often cited as the restaurant with the best view in Portland.http://www.usatoday.com/travel/extraday/portland/eat.htm USAtoday.com
The building was purchased by JPMorgan Asset Management in August 2006 for a price of $286 million.http://www.katu.com/stories/88673.html Katu.com It was previously owned by Unico who purchased it in 2000 for a price of $165 million. Currently, 92% of the building is occupied.
On September 9, 2008, LaSalle Investment Management entered a purchase partnership with Unico Properties for $285 million to acquire the building.
References
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[edit] References
Gideon Bosker & Lena Lencek. Frozen Music: A History of Portland Architecture. Portland: Western Imprints, The Press of the Oregon Historical Society, 1985. ISBN 0-87595-164-4. NA 735.P55B6 1985.
