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Graves is not the first architect to substitute stage-set design for architecture. He acknowledges the influence of Etienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, 18th century French architects best known for their drawings of visionary, mystic buildings. Their ponderous geometric forms, reminiscent of the funerary art of ancient Egypt, reflected a period given to the occult and secret societies like the Freemasons.
Boullée's and Ledoux's architectural visions served little functional purpose. They were symbols, feelings and ideas given form. Graves' shrine must accommodate a modern office and does so with little enthusiasm. The two-story entrance lobby has so much glossy blue paint that it looks like an empty swimming pool. In the second-floor meeting rooms and art gallery, there is conspicuous art deco decor, mainly thick pipelike chair moldings sprayed with glossy epoxy paint. The office space is distinguished only by windows that look like portholes on an ocean liner, except that they are square (the city council increased them from Graves' original 3 ft. by 3 ft. to 4 ft. by 4 ft.). Some frame splendid views of Mount St. Helens and the Willamette River.
Graves, who is a painter and sculptor as well as an architect, had never built a large building before. A professor of architecture at Princeton, he has won awards for houses and additions to houses, but his national reputation rests mainly on his drawings of architectural fantasies done in muted pastels, dusty pinks, cobalt blues and gray-greens. A Graves drawing sells for as much as $10,000.
He won the Portland job in April 1980. Explains Earl Bradfish, Portland's director of the office of general services: "We drew up exact specifications for the building and invited teams of architects and contractors to propose not only a design but also how it would be built and at what cost." It seemed like a commendably sensible procedure. There were eleven applicants. The jury of businessmen, officials and other interested local citizens took the proposals to New York City to consult Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee on narrowing the choice to three.
The other two finalists, along with their contractors, were Vancouver's Arthur Erickson Architects and the Philadelphia office of Mitchell/Giurgola, both at least as prominent as and surely more experienced than Graves. Erickson proposed an upside-down ziggurat of reflective glass, and Mitchell/Giurgola came up with a half-glass, half-masonry building with a lofty atrium. Johnson leaned strongly toward Graves' design, calling it "a landmark from inception" that would be noted around the world. Said Mayor Ivancie, with a measure of civic hyperbole: "It will be our Eiffel Tower. It will put us on the architectural map."
"What finally decided the contest," says Bradfish, "was simply that the Graves building better met our specifications for space than the others. It was cheaper to build and, because of the small windows, more energy efficient."