Remember this beautiful Willamette bridge design architect Miguel Rosales unveiled at city hall in April?
Well now architecture blogs have sounded the alarm that lead architect Miguel Rosales will no longer be involved with the new Willamette bridge project. TriMet chose a different contractor to take over the next phase of the project, which Portland Spaces writer Tim DuRoche worries means the innovative design will be canned for a cheaper, cookie-cutter option bridge. “Will it be a faint shadow of Rosales’ intentions?” asks DuRoche. “Will it be a less-inspired “low-cost aesthetic alternative” like everyone’s also-ran choice, the cable-stay.”
Perhaps invigorated by the Coliseum success, Brian Libby at Portland Architecture echoes the concerns and issues a warning: “If this news is true, Trimet should anticipate an avalanche of anger, disappointment, and a coming battle.“
Rosales’s white cable bridges are iconic in cities across America and (especially with the fat monstrosity slated for the Columbia). Even back at the unveiling last month, bridge advisory group members worried that budget concerns would trump good design.
TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch says not to worry. Rosales was selected to do the bridge study and help determine a bridge type, she explains. “That work is complete and we’re now moving into a more advanced and detailed design phase with a different architect.” The new architect is Donald MacDonald, whose lengthy portfolio includes more conventional works than Rosales’. Fetsch promises the bridge will not be a “cookie cutter” design – only two bridge designs are currently on the table, the hybrid one above and one with a similar look (below the cut).
The bridge advisory group votes to go forward with one of two designs next Thursday. The first design, above, is the “hybrid” option unveiled in April. This is the second – a refined cable bridge.
I think you’ve posted the pictures in the wrong order.
You’re right, they’re fixed now – thanks for the catch.
as far as the fat monstrosity goes
my new motto is:
12 LANE?
INSANE!
The V-tower design reminds me of the antennae poking out from “My Favorite Martian”.
Bait & switch.
Smack em Brian.
Here we go again. Libby has already cost the city tens of millions of dollars thanks to his asinine adoration of the fugly Memorial Coliseum; now we’re going to have to pay for a more expensive but no-better-looking and no-more-practical bridge…
Are there any architects out there who are prepared to prioritize looks and function instead of ‘architecturally innovative’? Or is it just every single member of the wider public?
Sorry, Stu, the Coliseum fight wasn’t as one-sided as you portray, whatever you think of its appearance.
This ought to be good. There isn’t any money to build the bridge so we need the Fed to kick it down. This is how it’s going to work architects.
Oregon’s delegation has already signaled they aren’t going to be able to come up with the $4 billion + needed to build the fancy nice bridge everyone loves.
So they’re going to come up with a number they can get the Fed to provide and then everyone in Oregon is going to cry about how the bridge they can pay for isn’t as pretty as the fancy pretty bridge they want and someone is going to have to say tough shit. This is what we can afford and it will work.
Maybe Libby could design the toned down utilitarian bridge. He seems to have a certain fondness for the architecture of the 50s which was very utilitarian and stripped down. Maybe he could encase the bridge in a beautiful glass rectangular cube.
So what’s going to happen is the architects are going to promise a fight and they’re going to realize that nobody past city hall gives a damn about what they think.
Uhmm, this isn’t the 12 lane CRC, this is a bike/ped/MAX/streetcar/bus bridge that will go near the Ross Island bridge, (which is an ODOT bridge, which explains why the bike/ped access sucks so bad, even though they just renovated it, and why we need a new one for MAX/streetcar as oppose to just putting rails in the existing road.)
The Vancouver airport/dog park/lawn would never let the CRC build anything near this pretty anyways.
Since when have we let a bunch of architects with no grounding in economic reality run anything?
I’m still waiting on the Libby plan to save the Memorial Coliseum. You know, the plan with actual numbers attached and financing that doesn’t continue to cost the taxpayers an arm and a leg?
Where is the Mercury in asking that question?
There is reasons why there are project managers to tell architects NO on every project in history. Architects don’t operate in reality (like the MC is a gorgeous building).