Hawthorne Bridge with skyline
— — the black truss the river remembers.
Not only on a wall.
“The oldest vertical-lift bridge still working in the United States, opened 1910, with the West Hills and the downtown towers stacked behind it. The deck carries bikes, streetcars, MAX riders, and the morning commute. A horn sounds, the centre span climbs for a tug, traffic waits. From the eastbank esplanade the trusses read as a steel lattice against the skyline, and the river takes the colour the sky gives it. — from the studio
Hawthorne Bridge with skyline, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Hawthorne Bridge crosses the Willamette River in central Portland, connecting downtown to the Hawthorne and Buckman neighbourhoods on the east bank. Designed by Waddell and Harrington and opened in December 1910, it is the oldest vertical-lift highway bridge still in daily service anywhere in the United States. The span is owned and maintained by Multnomah County. Its centre lift section rises for river traffic on the Willamette, which empties into the Columbia a few miles downstream. The bridge carries vehicles, the TriMet 14 line, cyclists, and pedestrians.
A Parker through-truss with a 244-foot vertical-lift centre span, set between two 165-foot steel towers. The lift deck rises to a clearance of about 110 feet so tugs, barges, and the occasional tall ship can pass beneath. The trusswork is painted a deep matte black against Portland's soft grey light, with the steel rivets visible at close range. The eastbank esplanade, opened in 2001 and named for Vera Katz, runs directly beneath the east approach and gives the cleanest view of the truss reading against the West Hills.
Free to cross on foot, by bike, or by streetcar. The Eastbank Esplanade and Tom McCall Waterfront Park flank the bridge on either side of the river and link the full Willamette loop, about 2.6 miles end to end. The bridge lifts on demand for river traffic and on a published schedule during peak hours; cyclists know the horn. The cleanest skyline angles are from the esplanade just south of the bridge at the end of the day, when the towers catch the last light and the trusses go to silhouette.