'The Totem Pole Marina building is a unique example of a mid century modern thin-shell roof building featuring a wooden hyperbolic paraboloid roof. It was constructed in the spirit of the Northwest Regional Style combing modern technology and design using wood. It is significant as the only known extant wooden hyperbolic-paraboloid roof building in Portland and perhaps Oregon. It is also significant for its association with architect John Storrs and engineer James G. Pierson. Storrs was one of Oregon's leading mid century architects and Pierson was one of Oregon's leading structural engineers. According to the Marian Webster Dictionary a hyperbolic paraboloid is defined as a saddle-shaped quadric surface. The Journal of On-line Mathematics says that the name stems from the fact that their vertical cross sections are parabolas, while the horizontal cross sections are more complicated than with an elliptic paraboloid. The elliptic paraboloid is shaped like an oval cup and can hav
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Description of this work is based initially on documentation supplied by the image provider. It is often the case with gift slides that very little information is provided. Review and updating of descriptive information by the collection cataloger is ongoing.
