It was completed in 1982 and is considered a masterpiece of a movement in architecture that is best forgotten…


The building does have this virtue: Its substance and appearance are one. Meaning, Graves’ building is at once a bad idea and badly built…

Michael Graves’ seminal postmodern work the Portland Public Services Building is under threat of demolition, following news that the 32-year-old building needs more than $95 million worth of repairs.

Blame for the building’s many structural problems is often placed on the tight budget with which it was made. But my feeling is that the idea and not the budget is the source of the rot.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...