Multnomah School (Portland, Oregon)

Title: Multnomah School (Portland, Oregon)
LC Subject: Architecture, American Historic buildings
Alternative: Multnomah Arts Center (Portland, Oregon)
Creator: Goodrich & Goodrich Jones, George Howell, 1887-1950 Waale-Shattuck Construction Co.
Photographer: Multnomah Neighborhood Association (Portland, Or.)
Description: The Multnomah School is located at 7688 SW Capitol Hwy., roughly five miles southwest of downtown Portland and a quarter-mile east of the Multnomah Village commercial area. The site is approximately six acres, located along SW Capitol Hwy. between SW 31st and SW 34th Aves. The surrounding area to the north, east, and south is predominately residential. To the west is a streetcar-era commercial area in a neighborhood main street setting. The one-story unreinforced masonry Spanish Colonial Revival-style Multnomah School was constructed in 1923 as a permanent replacement for temporary school structures built a decade prior. It is clad in stucco with self-mullioned multilight steel-sash windows and a red clay-tile shed roof at the perimeter. The school consists of classrooms as well as an auditorium and boys' and girls' play areas. In 1925, the play areas were enclosed and became gymnasiums. In 1929, a 5,000 square-foot addition of similar materials and design was built along the east. In the early 1940s, two free-standing classroom structures were added to the campus southwest of the school; six more were added at the west in the late 1940s. In 1979, the school closed. In 1984, it was adapted as a community arts center. The period of significance runs from the construction of the 1923 school building to the completion of the last major school alteration, which was the construction of the cafeteria in 1952. The complex consists of seven contributing resources and two non-contributing. The contributing resources are all buildings and include the main school building with 1925 and 1929 additions as a single functionally-related, interconnected contributing resource. They also include the six one-time portable, now permanent, rectangular classrooms located at the west of the property. Built circa 1940, these classroom buildings are of approximately identical massing, scale, and design. Each structure is 1,200 square-feet, wood-clad with hipped roof and comprising a single room. As for the non-contributing resources, there is one non-contributing building and one non-contributing structure. The one non-contributing building is a pottery shed, which comprises five interconnected structures, including three built outside the period of significance. It is non-contributing due to a lack of integrity. There is also a 4,750 square-foot open steel shed built in 1977, which is a non-contributing structure having been built outside the period of significance. Character-defining landscape features include street setbacks from SW Capitol Hwy. and SW 31st St., as well as adjacent open space to the west and south making up the original site parcel. Though adapted largely for parking, the amount of land and space associated with the property is integral to its significance as a school as it creates a park-like atmosphere reflective of progressive-era school design. Character features for the school include building orientation, building form, exterior cladding, extant steel-sash windows, roof form and materials, interior organization, corridor plaster walls with wood trim, and original corridor ceiling tiles. In addition to the corridors being critical interior features, the auditorium and two gymnasiums are important intact interior spaces and are character-defining as such. The complex retains a very high degree of integrity with no substantial alterations outside the period of significance.
View: interior: view looking west at the ca. 1940s Classrooms at the west (typical)
Style Period: Spanish Colonial Revival
Work Type: schools (buildings)
Date: 1923/1952
View Date: 2019-06
Identifier: OR_MultnomahCounty_MultnomahSchool_0028
Rights: In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Dc Rights Holder: Oregon. State Historic Preservation Office
Source: Oregon. State Historic Preservation Office
Type: Image
Format: image/tiff
Measurements: 41,000 square feet
Material: concrete, stucco, wood, terra cotta, synthetic, asphalt
Set: Building Oregon
Primary Set: Building Oregon
Institution: University of Oregon
Citation: Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, Oregon State Historic Preservation Office, http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/HCD/SHPO/