Gnarly Architecture

Current work in Second Life: Designing the Center for the Study of Virtual Collaboration. For more details, see my blog at: http://gnarlyarchitecture.wordpress.com. Or visit the site at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Madhupak/166/91/60

The 1913 Portland Gas and Coke Company building #3 is a beautiful Gothic concrete structure south of the St John's Bridge on the west bank of the Willamette River. Now abandoned and a toxic super fund site, it is slowly decaying away with no hope of restoration.

I chose this building as my first image used to create fine art quality prints of architectural imagery. I built a SketchUp Model based on the original photographic image, rendered it as a classic beau arts elevation study and composed it with sky and foreground in Photoshop. The resulting image was exposed onto a photogravure plate and printed on an etching press using an intaglio printmaking process. The process will allow for color using multiple plates or the incorporation of more fine art processes such as chine-collé and hand drawing.

The resulting images are a stunning combination of computer generated imagery, traditional architectural art presented with the richness and texture possible with fine printmaking. Look for more images to come!