letters
TO THE EDITOR
defi ne our co-op as a leader in social
responsibility for our business community.
However you decide to vote, educate
yourself on the referendum and candidates.
If you have questions about this referendum
on slavery tainted chocolate please call
752-9403 or email famemberspsg@yahoo.
com
Will Horman
Corvallis
WHERE WE DIED FROM
Really, this is embarrassing. Worse than
a get-a-life quest, it was a ghoulish waste
of time. It started with a harmless musing.
When we moved to Eugene in the ’70s, our
next-door neighbors were an elderly couple
originally from North Dakota. And it turned
out that most in their circle of friends were
from North Dakota too.
One day (here’s the ghoulish part), I
was looking through The Register-Guard’s
obituaries and noticed a lot of those who
had passed on were from the Dakotas.
My hypothesis: A lot of folks in their 80s
living in Eugene came here from North and
South Dakota. How many? Well, why not
keep track from the obituaries? (Why not?
Actually, everyone who knew I was doing it
had reasons why not!)
Ignoring their sage advice, from March
to August of last year, I tallied the birth state
for each person listed. And though I did fi nd
out about the Dakotas (N.D. had the 16th
most at 1.5 percent and S.D. the 22nd at 1
percent), gradually the quest morphed into
a morbid contest to see what state would
show up last.
Only 210 out of 667 (31 percent) came
from Oregon. Most who died way too young
were Oregonians but a surprising number in
their 80s to100s were, too.
California (10 percent) and Washington
(5 percent) came next, followed by Illinois
(3 percent). Alaska had two obits, Hawaii
one, Nevada one,, Wyoming three and Utah
three.
After six months I quit tallying but I did
keep looking for the three states that still
had no obits. Kentucky came pretty quickly
but Vermont held out for four more months.
Finally, 15 months after the start, the last
state appeared. Ironically, it turned out to
be the state with the license plate motto:
“The First State” — it was the fi rst of the 13
colonies to ratify the Constitution.
So, I suppose that if you moved to the
area from Delaware, you could feel like this
highly scientifi c survey could mean that of
the next 1,500 or so people you see, you’ll
be the last to go. On the other hand, you
really ought to fi nd something else to think
about. Most likely you’ll want to get a life.
Jim Watson
Eugene
SLOW DOWN!
Last week I had occasion to visit friends
who live in the 200 block of South 67th
Street in Thurston. I was shocked at the
speed most people drive from the top to
the stop sign. My friend told me this goes
on all of the time — I stood there in total
amazement. This is a residential area,
folks. Kids and dogs and cats are out and
about. Summer is coming soon and more
kids will be out on skateboards, bicycles,
running out in traffi c chasing balls, etc.
Let’s slow down and enjoy. Please.
Judi Greig Lawson
Dexter
BUCKETS OF DESTRUCTION
I recently learned KFC is using
throw-away paper packaging made
from rainforest trees. There is no excuse
to trash rainforests, including forests
critical to endangered tigers, for chicken
buckets.
KFC and Yum! have no sustainability
policies to exclude products connected to
rainforest destruction, and the company
has failed to even answer questions about
its sourcing of products such as palm oil,
soy and paper products.
Yum! Brands, and the suppliers it
buys from, are linked to the destruction
of Indonesia’s rainforests through Asia
Pulp & Paper. According to its own
public statements, APP continues to use
trees from the rainforests of Indonesia to
make paper products. This has to change.
KFC needs to clean up its supply
chain and stop pushing endangered
wildlife like the Sumatran tigers to the
brink of extinction for throw-away, fast-
food packaging.
Diana Kekule Bastron
Florence
DESIGNMATTERS
BY JERRY DIETHELM
Empty Nest
City Hall’s fir coat has gone out of style
C
ity Hall, I too dislike it — in its present state of disrepair. It depresses with
neglect. And sad to say that what it represents, a 1960s version of small city
government, just isn’t valid anymore. This early-Modernist, idealized square-
doughnut of city’s services — fi re, police, courts, administration, planning, and public
meetings — all wrapped around a central courtyard — has run out of steam in more
ways than one.
Eugene has grown and with it the need to have more adequate homes and unique
buildings for its fi re and police departments, which have now moved out. Both
architecturally and functionally this can be a good thing. Each new public building,
like the Hult Center, the Eugene Public Library, the police station and the new LCC
complex, provides an opportunity for a vital city to reshuffl e its service ensemble
and refresh its public face. But what to do with the emptying nest that’s left behind?
From the outside today City Hall exemplifi es early-Modernism at its most boring,
featuring stacked block concrete walls and block long facades of heavy wood
screening derogatorily referred to as its “fi r coat.” I remember wondering what poor
souls the long horizontal building housed when I fi rst drove along 8th Avenue in 1970
and being disappointed that it was Eugene City Hall. Even when relatively new, the
opaque wood screen looked more disproportionately mechanical than elegant, more
committed to some runaway idea of unity or fealty than responding to soul and sun.
Buildings of this period, however, won prizes for being excessively conceptual and
unrelievedly rational as City Hall is here with its one-stop-shopping “big concept”
congruent with its circle-in-a-square geometry. Elevating the building on pilotis to
provide structured parking underneath unfortunately also created an island out of
City Hall, disconnecting all four sides from the bustle of city life.
Perhaps the most successful element of the design remains the circular council
chambers at the center of the garden keep. This public room still offers a democratic
setting that works quite well.
Other public meeting rooms like the McNutt Room have been too small and
awkward for too long a time. Waiting outside under the conceptually unifying
breezeway during cold weather months is a good example of how a “big idea”
doesn’t necessarily keep one warm. Springfi eld’s remodeled shopping center City
Hall has for many years been a much friendlier and more comfortable place to meet.
Luckily for us, fi r coats have gone out of style. Modernism has regained
considerable warmth and moved on if not completely come in from the cold. Steam
6
JUNE 7, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
heating is no more. Fire and police have their own
homes, making earthquake upgrading easier
and more affordable. County and federal offi ces
remain close by. Much good experience has been
gained at overlaying whole new lives on such
older buildings as Centre Court, the Smeed Hotel
and the Granary to name just a few. And of course,
recycling and reusing isn’t just greener and more
virtuous, it’s also cheaper! So, BRING it on.
Why the reluctance to consider rehabilitating
City Hall? One reason is that we don’t always recognize Modern as being historical
because we’ve been immersed in our time’s signature stylistic home. Stylistic eras
tend to become clearer, however, when they’re being left behind. Another is the way
that the early Modern, with its intellectual emphasis on simple horizontal lines and
machine-like effi ciency, tended to eschew a humanity of form, detail, craftsmanship,
and artistic fi nishes that made older buildings emotionally accessible and therefore
harder to let go.
But there are armatures of opportunity that grow out of City Hall’s very modernity.
The simplicity and regularity of the underlying structural frame makes it all that
much easier for the existing building to be economically undressed, reconfi gured
and remodeled.
A recent study by Poticha Architects shows how that process might accomplish
some key community objectives. It demonstrates, for example, how the building
might be opened up and connected with a plaza to 8th Avenue and Pearl Street;
how the council chambers could be made more visible and symbolically important
to the community; and ways that additional useful, and perhaps revenue producing
space, could be added around the courtyard.
To my mind, this study, which would save the community millions, is still not quite
bold enough. I propose we also shrink the central courtyard and cover it with a glass
pyramid, creating an atrium that would transform the whole interior of the block.
I’d like to be able to look across the 8th Avenue “great street” entrance plaza at a
council chambers shining for all to see beneath its glass hat. Now that would be a
City Hall worthy of our own time and time and place.
City planner Kevin Lynch famously named this time-overlaying strategy a
“temporal collage.” Places that artfully remember themselves generate a richness
of urban experience that people continue to pay to visit in cities all over the world.
Jerry Diethelm of Eugene is an architect, landscape architect and a planning and urban design consultant.
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