True Portland: The Unofficial Guide for Creative People

True Portland: The Unofficial Guide for Creative People

Teruo Kurosaki, Liz Crain (Editor)
$24.95
Publication Date: July 1st, 2017
Publisher:
Hawthorne Books
ISBN:
9780997068306
Pages:
304

Description

True Portland: The Unofficial Guide for Creative People is more than a travel guide, it's a curated experience that captures the essence of what makes Portland different from other cities. In addition to the essential information about where to eat, sleep, shop, run, create, listen, and think, this book has distinctive features such as 48 Hours in Portland, offering nine itineraries by local tastemakers, and interviews with and commentaries by Portland luminaries including Chairwoman of Columbia Sportswear Gert Boyle and Executive Chef at Departure Gregory Gourdet, about what makes Portland unique. This comprehensive guide presents both longtime residents and first‐time visitors with exceptional insights into Portland. Inside this book you'll find: A highly visual, full-color guide (with maps and itineraries) to what and who makes Portland tick. Comprehensive listings for Portland's lively food and drink scene, ranging from its chef-owned restaurants, food carts, and pop-ups to local coffee roasters, specialty tea businesses, craft beer brewers, hard cideries, urban wineries, and cocktail culture. The inside scoop on Portland's progressive, free-spirited side, including skateparks, cycling, independent record labels, independent presses and bookstores, tattoo shops, LGBTQ businesses, and even vape shops. Wide-ranging outdoor adventures at close-in Portland locations, including the International Rose Test Garden, Forest Park, Mt. Tabor (the city's favorite dormant volcano), and the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade. Natural wonders farther afield, such as the Willamette Valley (Oregon's beloved wine country), Mt. Hood, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Oregon Coast. Other standouts: a brief history of Powell's Books, the lowdown on Portland's myriad record shops, stylish clothing and furniture designers, neighborhood farmers markets, historic beer-and-pizza movie theaters, diverse art galleries, neighborhood parks, the surrounding urban forest, stand-up comedy, and a month-to-month guide to Portland's favorite celebrated annual events.

About the Author

An important and influential figure in contemporary design, Teruo Kurosaki works in Tokyo. As both curator and innovative producer, he characterizes design as a way of life, and compares it to music whose sounds spread worldwide. One of the initiatives that won Kurosaki world attention was Tokyo Designers Block (TDB) in 1999. This popular international design event presented hundreds of designers the world over and extended to some 400 stores, galleries and alternative spaces throughout Tokyo, far beyond the normal range of galleries and shops meant for an elite clientele. Kurosaki is also well known as a talent finder and a general design maven who is not limited to any single aspect of design. In the 1980s Kurosaki opened the Tokyo design store Idée, where many classics of contemporary design were shown. Idée later turned into a chain of design stores, each specializing in a different design concept. Here Kurosaki initiated various design projects with international designers who have since become leading figures, including Philippe Starck, Marc Newson, Shiro Kuramata and others. The resulting ventures encouraged learning, dialogue and cross-fertilization between Japanese and Western designers. Kurosaki's current venture is Flowstone, a company dedicated to design education and to providing consultations for international design events. Flowstone stands for an approach to design as an attitude and a democratically accessible way of life. Another of Kurosaki's brain children, Sputnik Design, an international design collective, showed in the London Designers Block in 2000 with an edgy, alternative flair. Sputnik exemplifies Kurosaki's vision of design as both commercially profitable and a potential source for social change, a way of influencing lifestyle and living spheres.