The University of Oregon has hired Portland writer, editor and organizer Randy Gragg to lead the Portland area's John Yeon Center for Architectural Studies, an educational and research program of the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

Gragg is best known as a writer on art, architecture and urban issues for The Oregonian, from 1989 to 2007, and for his role as editor in chief of Portland Monthly, where he will continue as editor at large.

He has actively promoted the work and legacy of John Yeon since he met him three years before Yeon’s death in 1994. He has written essays and articles, organized exhibitions and presented lectures on the work of the man who is regarded as one of the Pacific Northwest’s leading architects for the Modern regional style and an advocate for conservation of the Columbia River Gorge and the Oregon Coast.

Gragg will lead the center that manages three important Yeon-designed properties and will build programs to support the vision of the center.

“The Yeon Center can be a standard-bearer for the preservation of the region’s greatest works of architecture and landscape design,” Gragg said. “I hope to make the Watzek House, Cottrell House and The Shire places for architects, planners, researchers, policy makers and visionaries to convene and be inspired to shape the best possible futures for the region.”  

Frances Bronet, dean of the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts, said that Gragg's "deep connection to Portland’s built environment, his ability to create powerful narratives about community and place, and his knowledge and leadership of historic preservation and public projects make him ideally suited to lead our John Yeon Center.

"The lessons of John Yeon’s ideas and work can foster meaningful contributions to our public discourse about design, architecture, planning and conservation," Bronet said. "We are delighted he has joined the university at this important moment.”

Gragg will be based at the University of Oregon in Portland, located at the White Stag Block. He will focus his efforts on program development, building educational connections and fundraising that bring attention and support to the outstanding work of Yeon and the significance of the properties and ideas that form the basis of the John Yeon Center.

Gragg helped found and is board president of the Halprin Landscape Conservancy, a nonprofit organization devoted to preservation and enhancement of Lawrence Halprin’s landmark quartet of fountain plazas in Portland’s South Auditorium District. He also serves on the board and chairs the programming committee for Portland’s world-renowned Pioneer Courthouse Square. Gragg was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2005-06.

Yeon Center, established in 1995, advances the ideals and principles of Yeon through research, publications and focused study groups, and promotes the exploration of critical issues in architecture, landscape architecture and other fields. The John Yeon Center is comprised of the Watzek house, a National Historic Landmark; the George and Margaret Cottrell House; and The Shire.

Yeon (1910-1994) was nationally regarded as a regional pioneer in the fundamental rethinking of art and architecture for the 20th century. A native Oregonian, and largely self-taught, his brilliant and wide-ranging design work includes buildings, interiors, gardens, landscapes, furnishings and museum installations.

“Whether designing a house or a garden or a landscape like The Shire, John Yeon had a rare, comprehensive vision for how the built and natural environment could comingle,” Gragg said. “He was a conservationist to the core, but one who saw development and change less as threats than as opportunities for beauty.”

Gragg can be reached at 503-412-3757, or email rgragg@uoregon.edu.

- by Karen Johnson, UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts