I made this shadow box art piece years ago, and it hangs in the home of master artist and architect (Founder of GBD Architects) Chuck Gordon.
All of the pieces in it are tools of the architecture trade used by C Gordon when architects were required to be master artists.
They did much of their drafting and scaling by hand (Before Sketchup and CAD) programs were available. It had the thought pieces that combined an older generation architect with a newer generation architect. Both are just wonderful men. I was so honored to work with them.
I look at this image of City Hall now and think to myself, there is just no way I would have known just how different our city would become in the scant few years ahead of making this piece. This piece was made during the Nick Fish era of City Hall.
City Hall has fractured into a shadow of its former self.
As I view some of the buildings in the downtown core, I think of the architects who worked out hours of creation, love, sweat, and tears, possibly won an award, celebrated their creation, went to a ribbon cutting, faded to the present and the building is a half vacant ghost of its former self.
Some of them boarded up, some have been removed altogether. It's so much more than the regular evolution and flux of a city skyline. This is a City whose downtown core is breathing its final breaths.
I do grieve in a way. The memories of a cleaner, safer, robust city that supported everyone. Everyone from the small family-owned Jewish bakery that made the finest Reuben sandwich to the KOIN news tower. That tiny food cart vendor and donut shop to the busy library and art galleries. Everything can be reinvented, including the visions and dreams of architects. Repositioning is the name of the game, the opportunities are staring right at us. A shell of what they once were.
