Washington Highway Inspires Works of Art
S P O K A N E, Wash., Feb. 5, 2004 -- 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. The balsa, glass and plaster of Paris models are as diverse asthe terrain along SR26. Among them:
A scale-model of 300-foot tall floodlit balloon towers markingthe water depth of the great Missoula floods that swept across theregion during the Ice Age. "SR26 Road Radio" featuring sounds of the road, includingsolos by windmills and irrigation sprinklers and a rhythm sectionof passing mile markers, reflector strips and telephone poles. Pieces of clothing from people who live and work along theroad: farmer's coveralls, a road worker's reflective safety vest, aflannel shirt. A vision of an imagined park illuminating paths cut throughoutthe ages by countless animals walking across hillsides. A fast-motion 13-minute videotape of the entire route, whichtakes much less time to watch than the drive requires at legalspeeds. A hillside motel in Dusty Park where visitors can watch Cougarsfootball games projected on the town's 100-foot-tall grainelevators. Then there are pieces that take what's existing and represent itin model form, such as a series of wooden telephone poles,microwave towers and grain elevators. "There are some significant agricultural storage facilities,which to an architect are some of the most beautiful structures onewould find anywhere," Hirzel said.
Hirzel said he hopes the exhibit will help combat what he calls"landscape bigotry" that prefers the evergreens, water andmountains of the state's west side to the desert steppe East of theCascades.
"In my opinion, the ability to find beauty and significance inthat kind of landscape is far more provocative," he said. "Manyarchitecture students are so focused on the building that landscapeis somehow forgotten."
If You Go…
THE ROUTE: Starts at Interstate 90 milepost 137, across theColumbia River bridge east of Vantage, Wash., and ends at itsterminus with U.S. 195 at Colfax. THE EXHIBIT: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, 2316 W. FirstAve., Spokane. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; admission $7adults, $5 seniors over 62 and students with I.D., children under 5free. For more information, visit www.northwestmuseum.org or call(509) 456-3931.