We're pleased to announce the launch of a new mobile website, developed in partnership with OSU Libraries: Bart King's Architectural Guide to Portland.
The site features rotating content selected from Bart King's popular An Architectural Guidebook to Portland, a volume rich with photographs and stories about Portland's celebrated cityscape. Portland’s civic planning, historic preservation, and emphasis on sustainable design are explored in detailed profiles of structures that have distinguished (or disgraced) themselves in some interesting fashion.
“Although modest 
in size, Portland holds a distinctive place in the pantheon of American cities,” writes Bart King in the introduction to his book. “Within a relatively small district can be found 19th-century cast-iron front buildings, skyscrapers, old brick warehouses, a distinguished 1890 train station, historic bridges, and an assortment of museum, government, and retail buildings… No one isolated architectural aspect of the city is necessarily world class; Portland’s magic lies in the sum of its small-scale projects creating a varied and pleasing whole.”
Discover that magic by exploring Portland using content from Bart's book via the website online or through any web-enabled mobile device. The mobile website features twelve districts, including Downtown, Cultural District, Government Center, Old Town-Chinatown, The Pearl, and all four quadrants. Each entry includes Bart's detailed and witty narrative about the structure, photographs, and an interactive map providing real-time walking or driving directions.
The collaboration, according to Press Director and Donald and Delpha Campbell University Librarian Faye Chadwell, "is the first example of numerous planned collaborations between OSU Press and OSU Libraries, leveraging the Libraries' knowledge of mobile development and user-centered design with the Press's mission to provide better understanding of our region."
You can read more about the site's development here. Learn more about Bart King at his website.
Related Titles
An Architectural Guidebook to Portland
Portland strikes a graceful balance between the rich traditions of its past and the creative developments of modern architecture. Written for both layperson and professional...