Washington Highway Inspires Works of Art

S P O K A N E, Wash., Feb. 5 -- Generations of Washington State Universitystudents know it as the Vantage Cutoff — the final two-hour segmentof a long trip from the state's west side to the college town ofPullman.

But to Paul Hirzel's graduate architecture students, State Route26 is a 133-mile-long museum of the diverse geology, biology andcultural history of Eastern Washington.

A four-month exhibit celebrating the highway between Vantage onthe Columbia River and Colfax on the Palouse has just opened atSpokane's Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

The display — which runs through May 2 — is a compilation ofmodels built by students in WSU's School of Architecture andConstruction Management.

"By building a meticulous model of something, it gives it asort of reverence, or value, that many people who drive the highwaydon't realize is significant," Hirzel, an associate professor,said.

'An Exhibit of the Imagination'

The exhibition grew out of projects Hirzel's students have beenworking on the past two years.

Hirzel said he challenged his students to imagine the stretch ofroad as a museum and to produce imaginative proposals that wouldhighlight its uncommon beauty.

"It's not a historical exhibit and it's not an art exhibit, butan exhibit of the imagination," said Marsha Rooney, the museum'scurator of history.

Snaking its way through or near farm towns such as Royal City,Hooper, Washtucna, Lacrosse and Dusty, the road is traveled by asmany as 10,000 west side students who commute to WSU every year. "SR26 is kind of like the driveway to Pullman for students wholive on the west side," Hirzel said.

Meandering over the Frenchman Hills, Paradise Flats, ProvidenceCoulee and Michigan Prairie, the highway crosses some of the mostsignificant geological, agricultural, botanical and culturalconditions found in Eastern Washington, he contends.