Mid-Century Brick Arches Embody Spirit of Old City Hall

The brick building on the northwest corner of Chemeketa and High has always seemed out of place, randomly dropped into downtown.

First Federal Savings & Loan (photo, 2014)
Wilmsen, Endicott and Unthank, architects

When I saw this photo a few years ago, it snapped into place.

Old City Hall, 1966
Looking a little southwest along High Street
University of Oregon, Building Oregon Collection

It was a modernist homage to old City Hall.

The building has an even more interesting history it turns out. It was designed by Wilmsen, Endicott and Unthank.

November 10th, 1964

When it opened, Robert Wilmsen, who seems to have been the main designer of it, but who also could just be in public as the senior partner, talked explicitly about its relation to old City Hall and echoing its arches.

August 3rd, 1965

He said that the new building

"serves as a foil to the city hall," each complementing the other. The brick-formed arches in the walls of city hall are repeated in the arches of the [bank] building.

The parking lot and short red granite column with a plaque on the corner are today the primary remaining vestiges of Old City Hall.

But we should consider including the bank building as in fact embodying a physical trace of Old City Hall. Its brick and arches absorbed something of the spirit of the original structure and now instantiate that. It deserves to be read and understood more closely to that lost building.

The building also deserves attention in other contexts. The Oregon chapter of DOCOMOMO, a group "documenting and conserving the Modern movement," which has advocated for the Civic Center as mid-century architecture, also has a list of buildings associated with Wilmsen, Endicott and Unthank they found it notable to highlight. There are four of them, and this may be a fifth.

Eugene Guard, Jan. 25th, 1961

DeNorval Unthank, Jr., who was a partner in the firm, but who may not have been involved very much in this particular project, is important in Eugene and statewide Black history. In University of Oregon named a residence hall after him, "the first Black graduate of the University of Oregon architecture program." (A little more in an earlier honor from 2015. See also Oregon Encyclopedia on his father, Dr. Unthank, Sr.)

More research could turn up evidence that Unthank was more directly involved in the design of the building.

But even without much direct involvement from Unthank, there is lots of intersecting history in this building! It is allusive in many dimensions.