Monday, August 30, 2010

Pics: Wells Fargo Center



A few photos of Portland's Wells Fargo Center, the tallest building in town, and one that tends not to inspire strong opinions either way. Everyone recognizes it, sure, but I've yet to meet anyone who's told me they particularly love or hate it. Although I admit that's a question I tend not to ask very often. There's a comments section below, so feel free to chime in if you do happen to have an opinion of some sort.


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So you might be wondering how I came to have a big photoset about the Tower of Meh. It was kind of a retroactive thing, actually. I started wondering how many photos I had where the Wells Fargo building made at least a cameo appearance, and the pile grew and grew and eventually I figured there might be a blog post in it. Which was true, apparently, if this blog post is any indication.

In the unlikely event you're a longtime Gentle Reader of this humblest of humble blogs, some of these photos might seem vaguely familiar. For the purposes of this post, ignore the feelings of deja vu and the flowers or whatever in the foreground and just note the presence of the building. It'll be almost like seeing the photo for the first time, sort of.

1 comment :

Samuel John Klein said...

Let me be the first, then to declare a passion for this building. I love it an always have.

I love the gentle taper at the bottom. I love the way it reminds me of a moon rocket, but in a very understated way. I love the way it's got that short outlier on the block bounded by 4th, 3rd, Jefferson, and Columbia. I love the way it vaguely reminds me of the movie "2001". I love that, despite being two stories shorter than Big Pink, it's still the tallest building in the city - and, hence, the tallest building in Oregon.

The WFT (which I still think of as the First National Tower, or "One-eye" (whimsically, when it was the First Interstate Tower) is the kind of quiet icon which perfectly befits Portland. It defines the skyline of Portland without being "out there" about it.

It's a perfect thing.