Yellow Mountain StoneWorks

Portland, Or. April 22, 2008 – Located in Portland’s Pearl District on the right-of-way between NW 10th and 11th Streets, Vera Katz Park is no more than the width of a sidewalk, but it brings the ancient world of Chinese stone masonry to one of Portland’s most vibrant neighborhoods. Originally known as “Sliver Park” due to its unique size and shape, this space was recently dedicated to Portland’s former Mayor, Vera Katz.

Vera Katz Park was created as part of Portland Center Stage’s master plan for renovating Gerding Theater. The park was designed by Scott Murase, principal of Murase Associates, both as an urban oasis and an integral part of the building’s storm water management. The design features drought-tolerant landscaping and a bioswale to filter storm water from the sidewalk, in addition to the elegant stone water channel. Widely known as a “stone artist,” Murase called on Yellow Mountain StoneWorks to provide the stone to make his design a reality.

“I conceived the water channel as a sculpture, where neighbors could interact with the wall and the water. You can sit on the stone, walk on it, and enjoy it,” said Murase. “When it came time to select the stone to accomplish this, the primary consideration is finding what feels right, since it’s an artistic decision.”

The stone used for the park’s water channel is black Chinese basalt from a small village in Southern China. The source stone is a sculptural piece, from which the water starts flowing through three different layers of stone stacked up to three feet tall at the corner of 12th Avenue. John Williams, president of Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, helped with stone selection from the early stages of the project, which included providing 3-D images, assembly drawings and hand-chiseled mock-ups so Murase could see exactly what the finished product would look like. In addition, Yellow Mountain StoneWorks founding partner, Erik Nelson, spent a week at the company’s fabrication facility in China overseeing the assembly, finishing and quality control inspections.

“Considering this park only measures 18 feet wide by 200 feet long, providing such a complex assembly of some 30 tons of stone was no small feat,” said Williams. “The intent was to evoke, in finished form, a boulder. The design involved cleft and pitched pieces with a random and rugged hand-tooled finish that had to be carried through adjacent pieces.”

“John was accommodating and resourceful, which was very important to me,” said Murase. “He worked with me along the way, even going on-site with tools in hand, to provide finishing recommendations and answer technical questions.”

The end result is a stone of refined shape with an organic finish, an elegant blend of artwork and craftsmanship to be enjoyed from the park’s viewing area. The park was built by Portland- based general contractor Baseline Industrial Construction.

Sliver Park is one of three signature Yellow Mountain StoneWorks projects in the Pearl District. The company provided design consultation and several different stone products for the Portland Festival Streets, a public project created in Portland’s Old Town area. Prior to forming Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, John Williams and Erik Nelson managed construction of the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, a Sister City project between Portland and Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. In this project, hand-finished Chinese stone helped transform a parking lot in Old Town into a Ming Dynasty-style Chinese Scholars Garden.