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Art fills the new Native American Student and Community Center.

Part of the Earth and part of the Sky—a poetic and apt description of the art and architecture of the University's new Native American Student and Community Center. Bronze sculptures appear to emerge out of rock, etched moon faces float on glass, and art prints of Little Hawk raise and roll over the paper landscape. This art is integrated into a building dug into the ground and crowned with a ring of poles and a pyramid of light reaching up into the sky.

"We built the vision of the students and the dream of the Native American community," says Don Stastny, the lead designing architect from StastnyBrun Architects, Inc. Stastny collaborated with architect David Sloan (of Navajo decent) and landscape designer Brian McCormack (Nez Perce).

The infusion of contemporary Native American arts into the building's architecture and landscape gives the center a unique look and feel, and it is an unprecedented art collection for a campus building. Emerging and well-known Native American artists created the new and commissioned pieces. Stastny estimates that the final market value for the art, which was bought through donations, could be as much as $850,000.

Many Native American cultures are represented in the structure, grounds, and art, but the true worth of the new center, says Stastny, is how it becomes part of the community and the community's life.

The Portland metropolitan region is home to 14,000 American Indian and Alaska Native people. As the only facility of its kind in the area, the center will provides a place for Native Americans to gather and share their culture and traditions. For Native students, the center is a cultural home supporting their enrollment at PSU and enhancing their academic studies with classrooms, a computer room, and meeting spaces. The University offers a number of courses with a Native American emphasis and educational programs, including the Institute for Tribal Government.

The Native American Student and Community Center project began as a vision conceived by many generations of Portland State students, and became a reality with a major gift from Jean Vollum and from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund. Art in the center was made possible through gifts from Penny Knight, Junki and Linda Yoshida, PGE Foundation, Keren Brown Wilson, Jeannine Cowles, Jack and Kate Mills, Bank of America Foundation, John and Jane Emrick, Henry L. Hillman Jr. Foundation, Dan Wieden, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, Nez Perce Tribe, and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Many others, too numerous to list, contributed to the center's art fund.

Hours for the public to visit the center at 710 SW Jackson Street are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.

View the PDF of this photo essay as it appeared in the PSU Magazine.

Photos by Steve DiPaola