Bursting with revelations, striking detail, and in-depth examinations of how a city evolves over decades, this guide to notable buildings of central Portland, Oregon, persuasively presents the history-rich mile-wide radius around Pioneer Courthouse Square as an “architectural microcosm” boasting a bounty of “beautiful” representations of “almost all American styles of the last 170 years.” Graf’s photos and compact, informative, and at times amusingly opinionated writeups (“It has become quite fashionable (and conformist) to decree the Portland Building ugly,” he notes) bear out that assertion, offering a brisk, well-organized tour, complete with map, of the city’s center and its architecture, which he argues is expressive of Portland’s “individualistic pride and of its aspiration to conform.”

Graf laces such insights and occasional provocations throughout, but the book is powered by love for Portland, for architecture, and a deep interest in the uses of buildings and public space over time. Each tightly written entry in his building parade notes (in the words of the first, dedicated to the Pioneer Courthouse and “the ghost of the Portland Hotel) the “lessons of blunder and triumph” of urban development, introducing each subject’s intended original usage, its actual usage, and whatever it has been renovated into today. Thorough but never belaboring a point, Graf notes the original architects, those responsible for retrofits and major renovations, and public perceptions of movie palaces, commercial buildings, hotels, a former carriage house, and more.

The result is a walking tour, a spirited local history, and a quick crash course in American architecture, urban renewal, and the changing textures of city life. Spotlights and gallery sections with ample inset photographs of architectural detail celebrate terra cotta features, cast-iron buildings, with renaissance/baroque Italianate front, and more. A puzzling disclaimer urging readers not to cite information collected here as factual without first independently verifying undercuts the book’s authority, but locals will cheer or jeer Graf’s opinions on the city’s most interesting, architecturally speaking, street corner and choices of just-outside-the-city-center building to highlight.

Takeaway: Lively, illuminating tour of the architecture of Portland, Oregon.

Comparable Titles: Bart King’s An Architectural Guidebook to Portland, David Banis’s Portlandness: A Cultural Atlas.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A-
Illustrations: A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A