Michael
Marley recalls when Tri-City school officials cautioned
architects to avoid anything fanciful in their designs for new
buildings.
Districts need voter
approval to raise taxes to build and remodel schools. They
feared “fancy” would come across as “wasteful.”
Decision-makers relied
on plain buildings to convey stability and
frugality, said Marley, principal with CKJT Architects, a Kennewick firm
focused on public sector projects.
It’s an ethos that
informed much of the region’s development but obscures the architectural
gems that dot the community.
The Tri-Cities Area
Journal of Business invited local architects to share their
favorite examples. Most shrugged.
“My favorite is the
building I’m working on at the moment,” one said.
“I don’t have a
favorite Tri-City building,” said another.
Design takes a front seat
But there are
gems, and Marley believes the list is growing.
Schools and other
clients are more likely to aim for buildings the community can be
proud of.
It’s OK for a school
to look nice, he said, citing Kennewick’s Eastgate and Westgate elementary
schools as examples of changes in how buildings get
designed.
Eastgate
opened on East 10th Avenue in 2015 and Westgate on
West Fourth Avenue two years later.
CKJT wasn’t
involved, but Marley said both are well massed, giving a sense
of balance between form and function.
“It’s getting better.
We’re starting to do better,” he said.
Marley’s top picks for the Tri-Cities’ “hidden” gems include the Port of Pasco’s $42 million project to renovate the passenger terminal at the Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, and two Kennewick projects – Parish of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church and the HAPO Business Complex, commonly referred to as the flashcube building.
To the casual
passerby, the flashcube is a glass box filled with
offices with an outsized electronic reader board attached
to one side.
But Marley
remembers what the neighborhood looked like when it opened in 1978 at
the intersection of West Clearwater Avenue and Columbia Center Boulevard.
Both roads turned
to dirt at the intersection. The four-story office building neighbored a manufactured
home park and undeveloped land.
It was a striking
addition to the landscape, he said.
The yellow-roofed Parish of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church, just east of the flashcube, is another favorite for its geometric form and flexible interior.
Gem status
Design West Architects
P.A. in Kennewick nominated the Columbia Basin College planetarium, the
Washington State University Wine Science building and the cable bridge for
“gem” status.
The planetarium houses
the largest planetarium theater in the region while the wine science building
combines teaching space with a full production winery.
The cable
bridge, officially known as the Ed Hendler Bridge for the Pasco mayor
that championed it, is arguably the area’s most iconic structure.
It was the first major
cable-stayed bridge built in the U.S., and it attracted attention when it
opened 42 years ago.
It won the
first-ever presidential award for excellence in design from a jury led by
the late I.M. Pei. Jurors called it a technical achievement and a work of
art.
the flashcube, 7601 W. Clearwater Ave., Kennewick.
A history of excellence
Michael
Houser, Washington’s architectural historian, said the Mid-Columbia
has a long history of excellence in design.
The Carnegie Library,
now the Franklin County Historical Society Museum in downtown Pasco,
opened in 1911.
The Franklin County
Courthouse, constructed in 1912-13 with a stunning 26-foot rotunda, was added
to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, the same year the cable
bridge opened.
Houser’s job includes
cataloging buildings and structures of interest across
Washington.
With little
prompting, he identified more than two dozen structures in Kennewick, Richland
and Pasco that have his attention.
“I
love the Tri-Cities,” he said.
CBC Arts and Music building
The
elegant but austere building on the Columbia Basin College
campus, won national praise when it opened in the late 1970s.
It
is Houser’s favorite building in the Tri-Cities in part because its future is
clouded.
The
Washington State Community and Technical College System included $2.3
million to design a replacement in the capital budget it submitted to the 2020
Legislature.
Houser
said it would be a shame to lose an admittedly stark building that broke
the rules.
The
Spokane chapter of the American Institute of Architects honored it in
1977.
The
National AIA followed suit in 1978.
Old National Bank building
The
former bank branch at 202 N. 10th in Pasco, is another standout.
Now
a store, its Mid-Century stylings stand out in a neighborhood that
includes a school, modest homes and small businesses.
Concrete
piers support a series of pyramid-shaped roofs and floor-to-ceiling glass
walls.
“If
you go inside, it’s even more interesting,” Houser said.
The numbers
one through 10 written in Arabic, Chinese, English, Greek, Indian,
Roman and other languages are carved into the wall.
Architectural
West magazine profiled the branch building in a 1967 publication.
Carnegie Library
Pasco’s
Carnegie Library opened in 1911, one of the 2,500 funded by
steel and rail magnate Andrew Carnegie between roughly 1880 and 1930.
Carnegie
set guidelines for size and function but left it to local architects
to work out the details. Carnegie libraries dot the landscape, but no two
are exactly alike.
Pasco’s
operated as a library until a new one opened in 1962. The Franklin
County Historical Society converted the old building to its present
museum.
Mid-Century Richland
Richland,
which separated from the U.S. Department of Energy when it incorporated in
1955, is stocked with mid-century gems.
“Any
time you’re in Richland, you’re talking about post-World War II”
stuff, Houser said.
Some
of his Richland favorites are the city-owned water plant on
Saint Street, which sports a striking blue and yellow
façade, Richland Lutheran Church’s mushroom-shaped (or folded
plate) roof and the former TruStone Inc. building.
TruStone
is long gone but its roof became the fingernail stage at Howard Amon
Park.
Honorable mentions
Houser also
highlighted the Lewis Street underpass in Pasco, the historic alphabet
houses in Richland and the 3030 West Clearwater Business
Center, an angular structure with echoes of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the name of Parish of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church. 1/16/20