Not far from the previous two rose murals I've covered here is another one, the Tiffany Weston Rose (1994), on a back wall of the Tiffany Center (previously the Neighbors of Woodcraft Building), at SW 14th & Yamhill. There's a rose here because this is yet another building owned by Joe Weston, the local real estate baron, and (as explained in a previous post) he just sort of likes murals of roses. This rose and the building it's on are named for his daughter, which I suppose is one of the little benefits of being a real estate baron.
The fraternal organization that built this tower had an odd taste in architecture. It's fortresslike on the outside, complete with Art Deco gargoyles. On the inside, it has a pair of fancy ballrooms, popular for weddings and other events. I've been to a number of company holiday parties there, and off the top of my head I can't think of any comparable event spaces around the city just in terms of sheer swankiness. It really makes me wonder what these Woodcraft people were up to. I do know it was a concert venue well before it became the Tiffany Center; for example, here's a blog post pointing out that Jerry Garcia played an acoustic show here on June 4th, 1982. Personally it's always reminded me of the 55 Central Park West tower in Manhattan, the building made famous in Ghostbusters as "Spook Central", built by an insane architect as a tool for summoning Gozer.
1 comment :
Very cool to see this. The artwork was originally designed and painted by Jere Harle I later repainted the rose in about 2008
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