Reception
In May 1983, the building won an American Institute of Architects honor award. In 1985, the hammered-copper statue Portlandia was added above the front entrance.
The building's style remains controversial among Portlanders as well as the entire architecture field. In 1990, The Oregonian stated "it's hard to find anyone who doesn't like Pioneer Courthouse Square.... it's even harder to find anyone who admits to liking the Portland Building." Paul Goldberger said:
For better or for worse, the Portland Building overshadows other things. It is more significant for what it did than how well it does it. It had a profound effect on American architecture and brought a return to classicism that brought us better buildings.
Pietro Belluschi said "I think it's totally wrong. It's not architecture, it's packaging. I said at the time that there were only two good things about it: 'It will put Portland on the map, architecturally, and it will never be repeated.'" In October 2009, Travel + Leisure magazine called the Portland Building "one of the most hated buildings in America".
Read more about this topic: Portland Building
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)