The Emperor's New Buildings

Note: This is a piece the MSM in Portland didn't want you to see. It was rejected (roundly) by everybody to whom I pitched it.

Every so often it falls upon a citizen to tell the emperor he is naked. That the new suit made by those "swindlers," as Hans Christian Anderson called them in the original story, is a hoax. That the "swindlers" have put one over on us, and have convinced us that something wonderful exists where, in reality, nothing exists.

The architecture with which similar "swindlers" have clothed Portland…the Pearl District, most of the new buildings downtown, and the inevitably-to-be-flooded River District are is as ugly as sin and will obviously deteriorate faster than cheese left out in the sun.

We want to believe that these awkward, clunky manifestations of "build-fast-on-the-cheap-and-sell-high-as-possible" scheming are making us look beautiful. Remember the "honest old minister" sent by the emperor to check on how the new suit of clothes was coming? He said, '"Oh, it is very pretty, exceedingly beautiful. What a beautiful pattern, what brilliant colours! I shall tell the emperor that I like the cloth very much.'"

Is that what the rich residents of "The Henry" said when they looked up at their new home? Perhaps they really saw a dull green bunker, more fit for a small city in East Germany, when there was an East Germany. Instead, they said they liked it very much, just like the old minister.

Portland architecture has always been built on the cheap, but some of it was good cheap, The Portland Building, or the Art Museum, for example. But the collection of unconnected, graceless buildings in the Pearl, some of which are already showing signs of deterioration, barely five years into what should prove to be a short lifespan has apparently fooled the moneyed class into believing that their city is making itself attractive.

As Hans put it," Nobody wished to let others know he saw nothing…"And we gave them huge tax breaks to build, don't forget that. Elected officials and the unelected whom they appoint also looked at models and drawings of these buildings and saw what? Maybe they saw money. They certainly didn't see beauty or longevity. Was Hans writing the story of Portland in the 21st Century when he said "(T)he swindlers asked for more money, silk and gold-cloth, which they required for weaving. They kept everything for themselves, and not a thread came near the loom, but they continued, as hitherto, to work at the empty looms."

We've got a lot of empty looms. Some of them are rising before our eyes at the moment in the flood plain near the OHSU tram boondoggle (which was brought to you by the same folks).

Yes, the same folks that brought you East Berlin in the Pearl are bringing you Budapest 1957 by the river. All you have to do is look. This lack of architectural self-awareness in a town that prides itself on self-awareness leaves a relative newbie (nine years) like me in the dark. 'But he has nothing on at all,' said a little child at last," wrote Hans. Twenty years from now, when the buildings in The Pearl have fallen apart and the money has moved elsewhere, people around here are going to want to know who the "swindlers" were.

Start with Homer Williams and list pretty much every other person or corporation who has foisted this "swindled" result on the rest of us. But blame yourself, because you're the one who looked at the new and said, like the "honest courtier" who, "praised the cloth, which he did not see, and expressed his joy at the beautiful colours and the fine pattern. 'It is very excellent,' he said to the emperor."