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Toward
a New City Hall
My wife once escorted a group of international visitors around Eugene, showing them the campus, Hendricks Park, the rose garden and the downtown. As they were preparing to depart, the guests conferred briefly then asked, "We have seen many beautiful things here today, but we wonder why you have not shown us your city center. Where is it?" While this group had indeed visited the center of our city, they had seen nothing which spoke to them of civic importance or values. They had seen no recognizable anchors, no places which said: Here we meet, govern, create and support our laws, celebrate and discuss, decide who we are and will be. It reminded me that in 1968, the great American architect Louis Kahn gave a lecture at the UO and afterwards went on a tour of Eugene. Kahn observed that, to him, Eugene had no real identity, no civic presence, no sense of "us" as a community. He commented that the city seemed to have no recognition of where it had been, nor any apparent aspirations for its future. Kahn then went on to promote the idea of a town center as a community's living room, a place that has interconnected parts where citizens come together to work, discuss, solve problems and fulfill their sense of community. While not all will agree with Kahn's perceptions about Eugene, the story is a reminder of the importance of public buildings and accompanying open spaces. The edifices themselves, their central locations and their public plazas, lawns or squares, speak of identity, community and purpose. Such places are claimable by all; they establish the framework for and are the living expression of our democracy. The current process to define and locate our City Hall is an important moment in the establishment of Eugene's civic framework. It is a period of decision that will influence our civic culture for generations. Two of the most important decisions in the new City Hall project will be choosing its position and creating its character. As a building dedicated to the conduct of civic life and the business of the city, it should be centrally located, and should be meaningfully interconnected by major streets and open spaces to the general fabric of the city. Our City Hall must have a distinguishable character and presence. It should be designed not only to tell who we are at the moment, but should also attempt to embody what we ought to be. It should not be conceived of as an object of short-term consumption, stylistic conceit or gratuitous effects. City Hall's character, its expression of purpose, should be clearly identifiable and meaningful. Our new City Hall must have enough value and power to represent all of us and to warrant an important position in our city. City Hall, as a public building, must maintain its character and meaning over time. The current activity to determine what City Hall will be and where it will stand has long-term ramifications. We are engaging in a process which will inform and affect the physical and social form of our city, its identity and functions for decades to come. We are presented with an opportunity. We can create a place which houses our civic government and speaks to its citizens, and its visitors, of who we are, where we are, and of what our vision of our community is and will be. One of my own aspirations for this process is that Eugene's wonderfully contentious and caring residents can come together, act together and come to agreement about the fundamental precepts that will guide the development of our civic future. The success of this project rests on our ability to act in concert and forge a coherent and unified vision of our future. Gary Moye is an emeritus professor of architecture at the UO and a practicing architect based in Eugene. He is the local associate architect to Thomas Hacker Architects on the City Hall master planning design team.
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