PDXplore: Designing Portland
If you’re like we (1), you like it here in old Portland. We focus probably more on ultra than in real life, on the new, the shiny…how do we slot in our love of Laurelhurst Park or wide sidewalks and buskers into ultra? Not sure. But we’ve scanned an historic planning doc or two, read a snip of history here and there enough to know that much of what we are enjoying has been in the works since before grandma was born (and maybe even great-g). Portland has been fortunate to have clearheaded thinkers, ambitious planners, and people who care about scale and livability expending energy, thought, dollar, on giving us things like little blocks, a vibrant downtown, transportation!, McCall Waterfront Park and the Park Blocks. Thought-full-ness precedes right action. (2) And we-who-are-not-planner/architect are lucky (3) that visual arts players (!) are stoking the fires of conversation about a thoughtful approach to our future. Elizabeth Leach Gallery and the Pacific Northwest College of Art invited a handful of designers (architects, urban designers, landscape architect) to think about Portland’s future, or the “shape of the city.” The resulting visioneering exhibition/symposium PDXplore: Designing Portland is on now at PNCA with a panel tomorrow night, July 8, from 6-9 PM at PNCA (1241 NW Johnson) with Rudy Barton, Carol Mayer-Reed, Michael McCulloch, Richard Potestio, and William Tripp talking about their work. From the website:
Endnotes
1. see Anita Loos for fun/flexible use of pronouns
2. that’s a pretty little aphorism.
3. ultra=lucky or we use the word a lot. optimists all.
