Thomas Hacker (Reed Harkness)
BY BRIAN LIBBY
When I began covering architecture two decades ago, not only was Thomas Hacker established as one of Portland’s most-admired architects, but some of the city’s other best firms had been founded by Hacker’s former students and employees.
In 2000, for example, just as Brad Cloepfil’s Pearl District headquarters for advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy gained international notoriety, his former professor and boss Hacker’s Woodstock branch of the Multnomah County Library was named one of the nation’s 10 best libraries by the National Library Association and the American Institute of Architects.
“I’m frankly not that concerned with architectural fame or anything like that,” Thomas Hacker told me on a 2005 tour of the Hillsdale library, another jewel in the Multnomah County system. “I’m much more concerned that the people we’re making these places for, and especially the public, really like them. Because they belong to the public. And our philosophy in this work is that you make buildings that the public can love.”
From top: Hillsdale Libary, Beaverton City Library (Stephen Miller)
But libraries were just the start. From theaters to university classrooms, museums to churches, Hacker, who passed away in late February, was arguably as important as any architect in Portland’s past half-century, in part because he made public buildings a focus — even a kind of spiritual calling. Hacker’s populist intent was also leavened by architectural rigor. He sought simple ways to make spaces sing.
Hacker first came to Oregon in the 1970s to teach at the University of Oregon in Eugene. When he came to Portland to found his own firm in the 1980s, the teaching didn’t end.
As a pro football fan, I’m used to the idea of coaching trees: former assistants under legendary head coaches going on to successful head-coaching careers. The really special ones make it multi-generational, like Bill Walsh, who after winning three Super Bowls in the 1980s saw his former assistants Mike Holmgren, George Seifert and John Gruden each win it all as head coaches beginning in the 1990s. In the 21st century, their assistants Andy Reid and Mike Tomlin have collectively won four more Super Bowls, and Reid’s former assistant John Harbaugh has won another.
In that same way, Hacker grew his own tree of influence, perhaps like no other Portland architect since Widden & Lewis, designers of Portland City Hall and the grand Portland Hotel in the 19th century, whose young-architect employee A.E. Doyle went on to become the city’s most significant early 20th century architect; then Doyle’s protégé, Pietro Belluschi, became Portland’s midcentury-modern master.
Thomas Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland (Pete Eckert)
Hacker’s career was shaped by one of America’s most iconic midcentury architects, Louis Kahn, first as Kahn’s University of Pennsylvania student and later working at his firm. Hacker even got to work on two of Kahn’s masterpieces, the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and the capital building in Dacca, Bangladesh. Kahn imparted to young Thom a spiritual reverence for great buildings, and encouraged him to always mentor younger architects, both for their benefit and his own.
“I’ve used many times this analogy of a jazz band,” Hacker said in a 2015 interview. “They all have their own sense of what they can do. They’re all really talented and full of energy. The leader of the band sets the tone in some way, and at some points makes crucial decisions of where it’s going to go. But it’s always an ensemble work. It’s never not an ensemble. It has to be played together. The greatest architectural works are like the greatest musical works, where everyone is on the same beat and has the same spirit. And the spirit’s the most important part of it.”
That his firm has only blossomed since Hacker’s retirement, expanding its reach to residential and commercial buildings, is a testament to how the late architect paid forward Kahn’s investment. So too is the fact that in recent years a new generation of award-winning firms founded by former Brad Cloepfil staffers, such as Lever Architecture, Waechter Architecture and Beebe Skidmore, have been extending the influence to another generation.
After retirement, Hacker kept busy as a painter and sculptor, which also is telling. With his blend of poetic building designs and wise mentorship, I think most of all he was an artist — one with a unique eye, a soulful outlook and, perhaps even more, a convivial passion for sharing ideas.
This post was originally published in the Portland Tribune's Business Tribune section. You can read all of Brian Libby's past columns here.
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