Portland Art Museum Exhibit blends venerable with cutting edge

Portland Art Museum’s exhibit, Quest for Beauty: The Architecture, Landscapes, and Collections of John Yeon, integrates a unique blend of venerable Pacific Northwest design with current cutting-edge product and professionalism.

And a prominent part of the latter comes out of Santiam Canyon.

The exhibition officially opened May 13 and runs through Sept. 3, and is billed by Portland Art Museum as “a retrospective look at an Oregon original.

“Few architects have influenced so many facets of a region as John Yeon (1910-1994). Yeon is most widely remembered as an architect, in particular for a series of innovative houses—most prominently, the 1937 Aubrey Watzek House—that drew an international spotlight to regional modernism in the Pacific Northwest.”

Among the partners in this exhibition are Freres Lumber Company, based in Lyons and Mill City, along with Kaufman Homes and Smalltown Wood of Salem. The wood-product professionals worked in conjunction to erect a significant portion of this exhibit, including a pavilion, two tables, four-feet wide and 17-feet long, and a bench for the outdoor exhibit, according to Tyler Freres, vice president of sales at Freres Lumber Company.

Freres said they made the materials in Santiam Canyon, where on Tuesday, May 9, they also broke ground for their cutting-edge Mass Plywood Panel production facility between Lyons and Mill City. That recently patented panel product provided raw material for the exhibit.

“(Portland Art Museum) had a preview opening of the exhibit last night, and it was well attended,” Freres said on Friday. “I was very happy with how it worked out.”

Given the scope of the project, it didn’t come together without a few butterflies.

“We were a little concerned about the time frame for the project,” Freres said of the partnership with Kaufman in the task. “But those guys are absolute professionals, and we not only completed it, but we were a week ahead of time.”

Kent Kaufman, president of Kaufman Homes, conveyed delight in working on the project, and with Freres product.

“We were honored to be able to be involved in this and are excited about the potential that Mass Plywood Panel has to change the building industry not just locally, or nationally, but worldwide,” Kaufman said.

Freres also saluted Lever Architecture and its founder Thomas Robinson, who brought Freres into the project and provided the designs to which they could apply the wood-product company’s product.

Freres said Oregon State University, with which the company worked in developing its Mass Plywood Panel, furnished a round-table of contacts for prospective projects. Robinson and Lever Architecture was among those, and the architect’s familiarity with the Freres product led to the match with the Yeon exhibit.

“He put together the project…he designed the pavilion, tables and bench, and we constructed those to his design,” Freres said. “For us it was a great way to showcase what we are trying to do.”

Freres also became familiar with Yeon and his work in the process, work he described as “absolutely beautiful.”

He was especially drawn to Yeon’s work with modular designs and plywood, an innovative product of the time, and designing affordable homes in the late 1930s through the early 1940s.

“He took a relatively new product and used its specifications to create new structures,” Freres said, relating an inspired optimism that architects and engineers may, in the same vein, find innovative designs for products like his company’s Mass Plywood Panel.

University of Oregon John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape describes the region's notable architect:

“John Yeon (1910-1994) is nationally regarded as a regional pioneer in the fundamental rethinking of art and architecture for the twentieth century. A native Oregonian, largely self-taught, his brilliant designs include buildings, interiors, gardens, landscapes, furnishings, and museum installations.”

Kaufman sees some parallels in Freres product design.

“Freres has put a lot into designing and engineering a renewable product that maximizes the potential of wood,” Kaufman said. “MPP has the potential to totally change the way we build, and it’s exciting to see a great local company not only be at the forefront of this new technology but to be the ones trailblazing.

“The Quest for Beauty exhibit, which honors the legacy of John Yeon, is a great venue to introduce this new product.  The thought and heart behind MPP is a continuation of his (Yeon's) legacy as he was a forward thinker and a conservationist,” he added.

As construction of Freres nascent Mass Plywood Panel facility gets underway, Tyler Freres reflects on Yeon’s innovation and contribution to design, takes pride in providing material to an exhibit celebrating that contribution, and imagines what the Santiam Canyon wood-products innovations may contribute in the future.

“We’re really excited about what we are doing,” Freres said. “No one is really trying to make a master panel out of veneer like we are.”

jmuch@StatesmanJournal.com or cell 503-508-8157 or follow at twitter.com/justinmuch

Freres unveils innovative mass plywood panel