Seeking guidance and documents with my 2018 taxes, I brought my daughter to pay a visit to the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building in Portland, Oregon. This was about the time I started carrying a camera with me everywhere I go (which can be an obnoxious hassle). Even though the purpose of the trip turned out to be a waste of time, our visit was not a waste of time, if only to indulge my fascination for big and beautiful and deserted spaces.
Of course, I did not tell my daughter we were going to visit a government office building. We would never have gotten out of the house. Instead, I lied to her and told her we were going to visit a playground that was full of kids and ice cream.
The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building is a government building, so there was a blockade of metal detectors at the entrance where visitors are required to remove knives and guns and bombs before they are allowed inside. At least the security guards stationed at this checkpoint were nice. They were more relaxed and easy going than their brethren at the TSA. Perhaps because the Edith offers a considerably diminished purchase for potential terrorists, the mood at these metal detectors was notably lighter. They even joked with my daughter as I got undressed and prepared my body for metal detection.
Just beyond the metal detectors (I made it through!) was the Edith’s main entrance – a huge open room with tall, yawning windows that flood the warm space in natural light. There’s a gather of couches and chairs, and some corporate art. But aside from the friendly government security stationed at the metal detectors, the massive room was stunningly empty. Some of the echoes bouncing around in there were a couple days old.
Amid the watchful eye of the security guards, I took out my camera and started taking pictures.
The Edith was not exactly deserted. There was a nosey delivery man. He was monitoring me accusingly, probably because I’d allowed my daughter to run to her hearts delight while I was attempting to take pictures of… what? A wall? The ceiling? He made no attempt to conceal his eavesdropping as he strained to get a look.
Standing too close next to me, he peered toward my field of view, then back at me and my camera to check the trajectory, and then again at my field of view. Then, with an overdramatic exhale, he put his chin to his chest and raised his eyebrows, blinked with animation – as if to shake himself awake.
He said, not to me, but to my daughter who was passing us at full tilt, “Must be some ceiling!” He nudged his dolly and, whistling, piloted his load of office supplies toward the elevators.
I gathered my daughter and we pressed-on, into the heart of the Edith.
Underneath a staircase, I discovered a particularly depressing still-life: someone had added a couch and a couple chairs in an awkward alcove under the stairs. There were no pictures on the walls, and no coffee table or side tables. Usually, in arrangements like these, there’d be an anemic office plant. (I feel for the sad office plants – whose origins are most likely from deep in the wild and lush and dangerous heart of the Amazon basin but which are condemned to a beige hell in some neon-lit corner.) But here, there was not even a sad office plant.
It made sense that someone would want to populate the space with something other than emptiness. And the effort here was valiant, especially for a government building. But I would argue, doing nothing here might have been the better bet. Without the couch and chairs, the space would have been simply empty. Unnoticed. But the attempt here – to conceal the emptiness with this clunky arrangement of a couch and chairs – not only brings unwanted attention to the thing they were trying to hide, but accentuates it. In this way, the space shared a commonality with a gut that’s been sausaged into a too-tight pair of pants, or a combover.
It seems the singular purpose of this space is to recall shitty meetings we’ve had with a boss or a supervisor. The one where they pulled you away for an impromptu “reset” or, “jam sesh,” or whatever it’s called.
As I was taking pictures of this sad, leather-bound triune, in my head I playfully titled the arrangement: Couch and Chairs No. 13.
Couch and Chairs No.13
I tried to imagine life in this dour little space, the choreography.
Where would two people sit?
If they sat in the two chairs facing each other, the space between their kneecaps would be roughly five feet apart – an obnoxious distance for even the most distasteful of conversations. The attendees would almost have to shout to communicate. A different arrangement offered similarly grim prospects. If one person were to sit in the chair, and the other in the couch, they would still be very far apart, but also hemmed-in by the imposing armrests of both the couch and the chair.
I imagined two people trying to meet here – distanced and unable to turn toward each other to talk – they attempt to communicate around a corner from one another, talking into open space and hoping their words find the someone on the other side.
And one element you might not notice right away, as one would not readily notice Van Gough arranged a bed blocking a doorway in his famous painting, The Bedroom, was the absence of electrical outlets. While plugs are a utilitarian feature, and not exactly jewelry, they are now commonplace and abundant. Intentional design for the many devices people carry which need frequent charging. The lack of plugs, whether intentional or not, spoke volumes to the unwelcome that permeated the space.
Such places – where the metaphysical barriers in the human heart are mirrored by real barriers in the physical world – make a sad and overly-mocking statement.
In spite of my daughter, who was vocally impatient to get a move on, I lingered at Couch and Chairs no. 13 as I did the other corridors and alcoves of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt. I wanted to soak-in their emptiness and their cool, corporate angles. My daughter was pulling me in one direction, while the building pulled me in another, deeper inside to loiter further the places in which I had no business.
I wondered if the people who work there take time out of their workday to walk the grounds? If I worked there, probably I would not. A workday is inherently accompanied by obligation and regularity, and when a space is touched by either – even a beautiful space – it can turn into something besides the space – not the place you visit, but the place to which you go for the thing.
That’s when I noticed the delivery man for the second time. He was peering at me from around a corner. He seemed both surprised and smugly confirmed to see me standing here, agape before Couch and Chairs No.13.
Again, he said to my daughter, “Must be some couch!”
I gathered my daughter and hurried away for the reason I came to the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building in the first place, the IRS office.
The Portland, Oregon bureau of the IRS was located in the basement of the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building. The office was at the end of a long hallway. As we descended the stairs to the basement, we descended into darkness. The lights in the hallway were off. Either this was for cinematic effect or to save electricity? Whatever the reason, the long walk down the hallway was both creepy and fittingly foreboding.
I could see, at the end of the dark tunnel, was a pair of heavy glass doors. Just beyond the big glass doors, a desk with a government receptionist situated facing the doors and, by proxy, the tunnel so that, as we walked toward the office, we were also being watched by a receptionist who didn’t seem to have a lot to do except stare unflinchingly at approaching visitors. From a distance, the receptionist, under-lit by their monitor, looked like a disembodied head set atop the desk.
My daughter gripped my hand and stayed close as we made our way down the dark tunnel toward the head on the desk.
I opened the door and the head on the desk asked, “How may I help you?” I began to explain my situation but the desk-head cut me off, “Do you have an appointment? You need an appointment to speak with a tax representative.”
I said, “I do not have an appointment. I was hoping—”
“I’m so sorry. You need to schedule an appointment to speak with a tax representative.” An arm appeared from below the desk. At the end of the arm, a hand. At the end of the hand a finger which pointed to a sign on the desk: ‘Tax help and questions answered by appointment only.’ And in smaller print: ‘To schedule your appointment with a tax representative, please visit www.ifyouneedtaxhelpyoucangofuckyourself.edu — kthxbai.’
The head on the desk waited patiently, allowing me to take in the sign.
(I love government employees. It warms my heart that even obnoxious misanthropes can find a job in which their distaste for people could be allowed, encouraged even, to blossom so flamboyantly.)
My daughter tugged away from the head on the desk, toward the dark hallway.
“So, I need—”
“An appointment, yes.” chimed the head on the desk. “And, conveniently, you can schedule your appointment online.”
“But I’m here now.” I hold up my phone. “If I schedule an appointment online, can I schedule one for now?”
“Good lord no!” the head on the desk laughed. “We are completely booked out. We usually encourage people to check before leaving the house, with their…” the head on the desk peered hawkishly over the desk at my daughter. “…child.”
Determined to redeem our visit from a complete waste of time, we departed from the head, (which watched us as we walked the long dark hallway) to explore more of the Edith.
In a lobby next to the elevators were some stand-up banners with information on the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building. Pay dirt. To my daughter’s horror, I stopped here to review the informational banners. Maybe we might learn something about architecture? But she was having none of it. This looked nothing like the playground I’d promised her. So it was amid her wailing complaints a man approached us.
He indicated to the banners, “Are you interested in the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building?”
“What a place!” I said. My daughter yanked furiously at my pants. “There was a recent remodel, yes?”
The man, happy to oblige an architectural enthusiast, dutifully clicked his heels together. He sidled up to one of the banners and began with a deep breath. It turned out, the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Federal Building, located in the heart of beautiful Portland, Oregon, was originally constructed in 1974 and underwent a major renovation between 2009 and 2013. Standing 18-stories high, the 525,000 square foot building employed more than 16 federal agencies and 1,200 federal employees. 1,200!
The man indicated to another banner, “The Edith is a stunning example of modern Green design in architecture. In addition to being LEED certified, she’s been updated with all new mechanical, electrical, plumbing and data systems including a number of efficient, sustainable and innovative technologies including elevators that generate electricity as they descend, unique exterior shades designed to react to sunlight, maximizing the glare of daylight and radiant heat in the summer.”
The man was really picking up steam, “We also make our own hot water!” he said. “Right here. The thermal panels provide up to 30% of the building's hot water. And you may have noticed our weird looking roof. It’s actually a solar panel roof that produces 3% of the building's annual electricity…”
He went on, at length, to describe the Edith’s energy efficient lighting system, and something called a cistern that holds 165,000 gallons of water and regulates the building’s low-flow toilets, water efficient fixtures and irrigation system that feeds the native landscaping of the surrounding grounds. In addition to reusing rainwater, the cistern reduces water consumption by 60% compared to typical office buildings.
The man finished with what sounded like a well-polished conclusion: “The Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt Building: wonder of modern construction, is one of the most beautiful energy efficient office buildings in the country!” And then he disappeared in a poof of smoke.
As we left the Edith, on our way to the playground, I passed the delivery man. He was leaning on his dolly at the front lobby, joking around with the crew at the metal detectors. The same crew who (theoretically) saw 1,200 of the same people, and the contents of their pockets, twice daily.
“You get all the ceiling pictures you needed?”
I said, “No actually. I’ll probably have to come back.”
One of the security guards gave me a quick wink and a click, “They always do.” he said. “They always do.”