laugh. I said to him, ‘We’re stuck together.
Teach me what is architecture as you
understand it.’”
During a weekend at Sunriver, they
drank red wine and looked at 1,500 slides
of architecture. “I knew I had a lot to
learn,” Hogan said. “But Thom had to lis-
ten to me, too. We needed to build some-
thing that local people could respect and
feel at home in.”
Later, Hogan and Mayne met in France
to view examples of significant modern
architecture, from Le Corbusier’s Notre-
Dame du Haut in Ronchamp to courthous-
es by prominent architects such as
Britain’s Richard Rogers (Tribunal de
Grande Instance in Bordeaux) and
France’s Jean Nouvel (Palais de Justice in
Nantes).
The Palais de Justice spurred the
judge’s reflection on the power of archi-
tecture and how it needs to be modulated.
Jean Nouvel wrote that “justice should
express its power,” and his design reflects
this. For Hogan, “Doing Nouvel was not
an option, because everyone has to feel
that they’re protected by the U.S.
Constitution. The Constitution is what we
need to ground ourselves in.” Hogan pro-
vided Mayne with a copy of the
Constitution, and for a time, they both
entertained the idea of having its seven
articles written on the seven exterior
planes that make up the courthouse, but
this proved too costly.
The more the judge immersed himself
in the study of architecture — viewing,
reading, discussing and thinking about it
— the more his interest deepened for the
field at large. “Now I’m drawn to build-
ings and see things I never saw before. The
process of learning about architecture has
added richness to my life and an apprecia-
tion for how architecture shapes our
lives.”
THE JUDGE AND
THE ARCHITECT
In terms of political and religious
views, Hogan and Mayne are, by their own
accounts, worlds apart. But Mayne finds
his relationship with Hogan enjoyable
because they can be brutally honest with
one another.
“It’s a very personal, very intimate
relationship because we’re allowed to say
what we think,” Mayne said. “He’s a love-
ly human being. He has a great sense of
humor, and we can pummel each other.
This relationship can keep evolving. It’s
not so fixed as my other relationships,
because our grounding is so different that
it’s like coming from two different coun-
tries. With the other people I know, who
share the same grounding, we can only
argue about minor things.”
With respect to the courthouse, Hogan
and Mayne have worked well together.
sents everything you’re able to incorporate
during that time — and in architecture that
time is pretty slow. In this case it takes
place over five years.”
For his part, Hogan provided informa-
tion about the workings of a courthouse
and voiced ideas and concerns. “Given his
character,” Mayne said, “he can’t be on the
sideline. He’s a major participant. It’s a
collective project between him and me,
and others too, but he’s the most impor-
tant. His input is going to permeate the
whole work. We’re conserving the influ-
ence of history, we agreed on that. At the
same time, this is a creative piece, and as
you can see from the current GSA exhibit
decline in symbolic representation in
architecture, though its impact was not felt
in courthouse architecture before the mid-
20th century. Today, the public is still
familiar with the formal and stylistic char-
acteristics of earlier courthouses, with
their monumental entrances and use of
columns and pediments to embellish
façades.
However, from buildings that arose
through the 1960s-1980s, it is impossible
to tell a courthouse from a bank. Public
buildings became as generic as their pri-
vate counterparts.
Coming up with an uncompromisingly
contemporary architectural vocabulary
CONSTRUCTION IS UNDERWAY AT THE FEDERAL COURTHOUSE SITE.
in Manhattan, it wasn’t possible to be that
creative with other clients.” (The exhibit
“Civic Spirit: Changing the Course of
Federal Design” showcases projects
undertaken under the Design Excellence
Program, including the Eugene court-
house.)
SYMBOLS
“For judges, a courthouse means
columns,” Hogan said. “I knew that I
wouldn’t get columns, but I was hoping
for some cues that could be recognized
from the outside, indicating that this is a
courthouse, with no sign necessary.” The
judge wanted a building that made a state-
ment, was clearly recognizable as a civic
building and represented the fabric of our
culture in some ways.
These were challenging demands.
During the 20th century no style devel-
oped that the public recognized as symbol-
ic of a courthouse. Throughout history the
evolving form of the courthouse indicated
the building’s function, while also repre-
senting in various manners the cultural
beliefs of the time and place. The temple
capable of conveying clear and specific
symbolic significance to a large audience
is not easy where no universal common
language is established. In contemporary
architecture symbols tend to be either pri-
vate or intelligible to a minority only and
therefore ill-suited to public works. But it
is impossible for any building to not indi-
cate something about the culture that
designs it. Late 20th-century courthouses,
undistinguishable from business head-
quarters, communicated some unmistak-
able facts about our society.
Now many people, includ-
ing Hogan, feel the
need for public
buildings to once
more embody or
express the social
and cultural val-
ues traditionally
associated
with
their functions.
“I thought we
could meet the
traditional needs of
a courthouse and still
do it within the context
While working with Mayne, Hogan
was also confronted with a way of
approaching problems quite different from
the one he was used to. “I would emotion-
ally invest in a solution,” Hogan said, “and
two weeks later it would be absolutely
changed. As judges, we research, analyze
and then come up with an answer, where-
as architects are dealing with a constant
stream of ideas.”
SECURE BUT OPEN
AND ACCESSIBLE?
Security has become an uppermost
issue in public architecture, a trend further
reinforced by 9/11. Architects’ designs
must conform to ever-stricter codes. The
challenge is that “we’re trying to provide
security without seeming to do so,” Hogan
explained. “We want to offer protection,
but we don’t want to be a fortress. We
want to create a sense of openness and
transparence.”
Architects such as Mayne respond to
the need to balance enhanced security
requirements with public access by incor-
porating so-called transparent security
measures that minimize obvious barriers
in the very structure of their designs — in
this case, for instance, setbacks and a sin-
gle main entrance on the second floor.
Hogan was concerned that employees
“feel happy in the building and feel that
they’re doing something important.” It is
not unusual for externally attractive build-
ings to feel uncomfortable for the occu-
pants.
Given the general public consensus that
wheelchair ramps provide full and equal
access to public buildings — for people
who use wheelchairs and walkers, for par-
ents with strollers — such ramps should be
added to the list of necessities which archi-
tects must include, along with HVAC,
security features and door openings.
THE WAYNE LYMAN
MORSE UNITED STATES
COURTHOUSE
Architecture magazine awarded the
270,000-square-foot Wayne Lyman Morse
U.S.
Courthouse
a
2004
Progressive Architecture
design award.
Rising above a two-
story glass-enclosed
plinth that houses
administrative
offices and support
spaces, three curv-
ing zinc-clad pavil-
ions will each
enclose a pair of
courtrooms and
judges’ chambers.
The ceremonial
“MY HOPE, IS THAT WE REMEMBER THAT THE RIVER IS A PART
OF WHAT WE’RE ABOUT. I’D LIKE TO SEE ITS PROMINENCE
CELEBRATED RATHER THAN HIDDEN.” – U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE MICHAEL HOGAN
Mayne, who purposefully did not name
his firm after himself, is always careful to
point out that architecture is a collabora-
tive endeavor and buildings the result of
teamwork.
“A piece of work is a gestalt,” Mayne
said about the design process, “a synthesis
of knowledge at a particular time. It repre-
model dominated 17th century courthouse
architecture. In the late 18th century, the
style across the U.S. was Neo-Classical,
followed in the 1820s by the Greek
Revival mode, which became the national
style in courthouse design.
The emergence of the International
Style around the 1920s brought about a
of modern architecture,” Hogan said.
“So we asked ourselves: What can we
incorporate from old courthouses and
still have a modern building?” Just as a
judge must interpret the law, Mayne
saw his work in part as a reinter-
pretation of classical and tradi-
tional elements.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2004 13