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
See a related page at Wikipedia for additional information.
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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.
