Portland State College Development Planning, 1955-1966 Originally a single building in a residential neighborhood along Portland’s South Park Blocks, PSU’s campus has expanded into nearly 60 structures, routinely serving upwards of 30,000 students across more than 40 acres of downtown Portland. Each time the University is presented with the possibility of more property, a study is conducted to determine the best ways to occupy it. Periodically this comes as a comprehensive facility development plan projecting years into the future and providing the University guidance and direction going forward. Ultimately these ambitious efforts often get more wrong than right, but they provide a fascinating look into the thinking of the time as well as a glimpse into what campus facilities could have been had circumstances been different. The following is a brief history of the earliest efforts of Portland State College’s (PSC) efforts at physical plant planning. Shortly after Portland State Extension Center moved into Lincoln High School (initially renamed Old Main and now known as Lincoln Hall) in 1952, it was discovered that a building inadequate for 1,600 high schoolers was somehow equally inadequate for 2,500 college students. In 1955 the Oregon Legislature elevated Portland State into a four-year, degree-granting college at Lincoln Hall “and any areas in the vicinity of such property.” Consequently, a linear expansion plan for the three blocks south of the school was created, and in September 1955 ground was broken for the northwest quarter of Cramer Hall (originally State Hall). As academic programming expanded into majors (1957) and professional schools (1959), it became clear the plan was already inadequate. In 1961 the first long-range study for physical expansion was developed with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), which was tasked with determining how to accommodate 20,000 FTE undergraduates (15,000 more the number of students then on campus). SOM planned for a vertical campus with State Hall rising 14 levels and all the other buildings on the Park Blocks growing to seven levels, followed by a mostly westward expansion. Based on this plan the State Board of Higher Education approved expanding west of SW Sixth Avenue and south of SW Market Street to the future I-405. Growth continued as graduate degrees became available, and in 1964 when a $13-million urban renewal project to create a College District was presented by the Portland Development Commission (PDC), Portland State seized the opportunity. Following criticism from the PDC chair, Ira Keller, that the buildings’ designs were becoming too “piecemeal,” Campbell Michael Yost’s 1966 Master Development Plan presented a new, singularly Brutalist vision for PSC’s future. This ambitious plan featured city street closures, nearly a mile of elevated walkways, including a 35foot wide Park Blocks overpass, an almost absurd amount of off-street parking, and a sports facility straddling the freeway. While the plan set the style for campus construction for many years, it failed to anticipate a mounting resistance to elevated walkways, the unexpected addition of repurposed housing buildings in 1969, and never-quite-enough state funding. These developments contributed to the campus gradually abandoning the unified Brutalist look while also helping usher in its modern embrace of diverse architectural styles. —Bryce Henry Bryce Henry is PSU’s archivist for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Archives. PAST TENSE: Looking back at PSU’s early history The 1966 Campbell Michael Yost plan called for a 35-foot wide overpass through the Park Blocks. 5 The RAPS Sheet April 2021
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