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When discussing large public structures in the northwest, the term "Richardsonian Romanesque" gets kicked around a lot, especially when it comes to railway stations and government buildings. This is actually rather odd, for Henry Hobson Richardson designed very few rail stations, and those he did were modest suburban stops, not impressive urban structures. Mirky understanding of American architecture of the late 19th century has resulted in Richardson becoming a byword for anything made of large scale with an Italianate bent. For example, Portland Union Station is often described as Richardsonian Romanesque, including in an article I myself wrote for TRAINS Magazine back in 2005.

To which I now say: oops!

Richardson designed no buildings West of Colorado, but if there were a truly Richardsonian inspired structure, I would nominate this one: Old City Hall in Tacoma, Washington. Built in 1893, it was designed by Edward A. Hatherton, a San Francisco architect. It includes in it details similar to structures like Portland Union Station, such as the pressed brickwork and the terra cotta ornaments, yet it is far more Richardsonian in style. Note, for example, that each floor has a different size, scale, and detailing to its windows. The building has a great deal of ornamentation, and a thick clock tower complete with belfry. It is far too decked out with detail to be truly Italianate, as it is sometimes described: genuine Tuscan structures would be far plainer in appearance. Nor does this have the lightness and mixture of Moorish and Gothic styles of Venice. What we see here is the eclecticism of Richardson, a fantasy architecture made from borrowing many stylistic elements of the past and recombining them into a new whole.

Why does this matter? Why should we care what to call it? Because the style of this building tells us a lot about Tacoma's place in the world, both in the past and the present.

Henry Van Brunt clues us in. Van Brunt was another architect of the era, a man who admired Richardson and yet only emerged from his shadow late in life. He also was a prolific critic of art and architecture, frequently writing on these topics for The Atlantic. In the same year that Tacoma's city hall was opened, he writes about what meaning can be gleaned by reading the bricks of a building:

“The Cathedral of Paris, to take a familiar example, if it were properly analyzed… would be found to contain not only all that is essential to know of the spirit of the Middle Ages in general, of all the monastic orders, of the decay of feudalism, of the birth of civil liberty, but in specific detail all the religious, social, and political life of the time; and this, not so much because it is a great municipal and ecclesiastical monument, not because it was deliberately intended to express the history of the times in which it was built, but because it is a work of art, unconsciously expressing that civilization in terms the most exalted and beautiful within the scope of the builders.”

Thus, Old City Hall tells us much about Tacoma. Its Richardsonian style, upon opening, was already obsolete. Richardson himself had died in 1886, six years earlier, with his pinnacle works, the Allegheny Courthouse in Pittsburgh and the Marshal Fields Department Store in Chicago completed around his death. Others -- Van Brunt included -- had begun to move away from eclecticism towards a style that blended Renaissance sensibilities with a robust, Arts and Crafts inspired heft. Portland's Union Station, designed by Van Brunt and a contemporary of Tacoma City Hall, was the harbinger of this new, cleaner precursor to Modernism. So Tacoma, even in the 1890s, was showing its status as a second city, a place that was behind the times rather than ahead of them. This much at least the bricks of its Old City Hall can tell us.

Still, outdated though it was, the structure was no doubt impressive then, and remains so today. Unfortunately, it ceased to be city hall in mid century, and presently it sits empty, with interior water damage and a failed redevelopment scheme hovering over it. We can only hope that better things lie ahead for it. In the meanwhile, though, if you'd like to construct a paper model of the building, the City of Tacoma has downloadable PDF files available to do so: talk about a cool and creative way to build awareness of a historic preservation issue!

If you would like to learn more about the architects of the Gilded Age and the architecture of the northwest's railway stations, I will be giving a lecture at the Architectural Heritage Center on February 18th. Hope to see you there!

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Once, a hale flowering plum tree stood on the fence line between my family's home and a small apartment complex. It stood right on the line, the trunk half on our property, half on theirs. One day, the apartments hired a landscaper, and they, thinking the tree was on their property, cut it down to the ground. It was a sad moment, but little could alter the fact that the tree was now gone. And besides, it was a common pink plum, simple single blossoms, dark red leaves, and small fruit more loved by the crows than by us.

A funny thing happened, however. Cut down, the plum sought and achieved vengence. By Spring, the roots had sprouted shoots taller than a man. Within a year, the tree was back to its full twenty feet of height, and by two years, it was as full as it had ever been. Gardeners call this effect coppicing, and it is well known that some trees produce better, healthier growth by being chopped to their roots. When I look about modern Tacoma, I see the after effects of just this procedure.

The renewal in Tacoma is not many things. It is not twee, despite the presence of a few whimsical and post-modern elements, such as the Washington State History Museum building, the reinterpreted totem statue near Union Station, or the mock volcano of glass by the waterfront, or even the vest-pocket 1.6 mile modern streetcar line. The renewal is not large in scope or scale, as the number of new structures is modest and are of a scale that would barely be noticed on the Skylines of Portland or Seattle. Nor has Tacoma spawned a rich urban culture of shops and restaurants: though there are some fine places, the selection here is limited, and many of the storefronts are taken up by either small antique stores or government related services. And much, much, much remains un-rebuilt, unsaved, empty, vacant, abandoned. There is no sense of self-awareness on a grand scale, and the town remains modest. There is no pretension to being the equal of great European capitals as in Stumptown, no sense of bigger is the same as better as in Seattle. This, in some ways, makes the renewal all the more special.

What is seen in Tacoma is a piece by piece restoration of key historic structures. We can see, also, a sense of civic pride that, at least on the surface, appears more driven by community identity than by developer gain. It is as if, like the plum, Tacoma's roots go deep and are good, so that renewal, rather than being forced, is instead a force that cannot be denied.

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Those interested in Portland transit geekery should check out the February 2012 issue of Railfan & Railroad Magazine. The cover story of this issue is the Portland Transit Challenge, a story I wrote on an attempt to ride every mile of commute rail, light rail, and streetcar service in the Portland metro area. The magazine should be on newsstands in the area now.

TriMet 1702, one of two RDCs refurbished for use on the Westside Express Service commuter rail line, at Wilsonville on January 24, 2011, its first day of revenue service. Portland & Western Engineer Ken Nichols leans out of the window for a classic engineer's pose.

WES is practically in my backyard, a commuter rail service that links outlying Wilsonville with inner suburbs like Tigard and Beaverton. Unfortunately the system was troubled by new equipment that proved to be unreliable at first, and TriMet bought the RDCs -- stainless teel self-propelled cars built in the 1950s -- as backup power. They are nice in their own way, with a vintage feel inside, though they don't have the heating and air conditioning power of the newer vehicles, nor their free on board WiFi Internet access.