The Portland Art Museum Rothko Pavilion & Campus Renovation has received an Honor Award in the 2026 AIA Oregon Architecture Awards program. The Oregon Architecture Awards recognize projects that advance design excellence and demonstrate the meaningful contributions architecture can make to people, communities, and the future of Oregon while exemplifying the principles of the AIA Framework for Design Excellence. This year, only six projects were selected by the jury to receive an Honor Award, the highest project honor given by AIA Oregon. The awards were presented during the 2026 Oregon Design Conference.
“There is a kind of simplicity to it that camouflages all the very-much thought-of details and careful construction to bring all the elements together so it is effortless when you look at it.” Oregon Architecture Awards Juror Aik Ablimit, AIA
The major renovation of the Portland Art Museum and addition of the Rothko Pavilion represent one of the most significant capital investments in the arts in Oregon history. The project renovated 100,000sf and added 24,000sf, primarily within the pavilion which integrates the campus, connecting the museum’s two historic buildings and establishing a new main entrance. Projecting a distinctly Modernist character, the pavilion respects its historic partners while solving myriad challenges resulting from patchwork growth over time — welcoming visitors with transparency and universal accessibility, establishing common links across every floor, and creating an intuitive and cohesive whole. Deftly bridging two very different buildings that were never designed to work together, the pavilion stands not as a third building but as the fabric that ties the campus together. Additionally, it provides an open-air street-level passageway that maintains a tradition of pedestrian and bicycle traffic through the site and offers sheltered views into galleries, extending the museum experience into the public realm. Through thoughtful design, the project achieved ambitious goals: unprecedented levels of universal and public access, deep respect for its historic structures, and design elegance and technical sophistication despite extreme complexity.
Congratulations to the project team: Hennebery Eddy Architects, Vinci Hamp Architects, Portland Art Museum, Mortenson Construction, KPFF Consulting Engineers, Code Unlimited, Edgett Williams Consulting Group, Studio NYL, Halliday Associates, Inc., Andrea Cochran, Walker Macy, Lux Populi, Interface Engineering, RWDI, Kittelson & Associates, and Urban Resources, Inc.