Design
Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) with Pietro Belluschi as a consultant. The tower cost $60 million to construct and was dedicated on December 1, 1983. Originally, the building served as the national headquarters of U.S. Bancorp, and was the regional headquarters of that organization until a 1997 merger moved the corporate offices to Minneapolis, Minnesota. U.S. Bancorp has 480,000 square feet (45,000 m2) leased until 2015.
Perhaps the most unusual features of the building are its shape and color. Pietro Belluschi was most concerned about the play of light and shadows on its surface; meanwhile, the SOM team had to work with a uniquely shaped lot due to the street grid. The meshing of these two concerns led to what has been called Portland's most dynamic building. Because of the street grid, the tower features no right angles in its parallelogram footprint. This, in turn, makes it look either extremely slender or wide depending upon one's viewing angle. Belluschi carefully selected the glass and granite for the exterior facing. The pink granite covering the building was quarried in Spain. The Pittsburgh Plate Glass used for the windows is also pink, an effect caused by its being "glazed in a semitransparent coating of copper and silver that looks pink from the outside". The windows can absorb or reflect light depending upon how much light is upon them, while the surrounding granite may appear darker or lighter than the window panes, depending upon the time of day. The unusual color earned the building the nickname "Big Pink", after an album by The Band.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the top floors held the headquarters of Louisiana-Pacific.
Since a $4 million renovation in 2002, the 30th floor of the tower has been occupied by the Portland City Grill, Portland's top-grossing restaurant. It is often cited as the restaurant with the best view in Portland.
The building was purchased by JPMorgan Asset Management in August 2006 for a price of $286 million. It was previously owned by Unico Properties, who purchased it in 2000 for a price of $165 million. Currently, 92% of the building is occupied.
On September 9, 2008, LaSalle Investment Management entered a purchase partnership with Unico Properties for $285 million to acquire the building.
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Northeast facing view of Big Pink from Burnside
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US Bancorp Tower at night
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Daytime view on a cloudy day
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US Bancorp Tower with Mount Hood in the background
Read more about this topic: US Bancorp Tower
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)