Brian Libby

Brian Libby is a Portland freelance journalist and critic who has spent the past 25 years writing about architecture, visual art and film. He has contributed to nine sections of The New York Times, as well as to The Wall Street Journal, Architectural Digest, The Atlantic, Dwell, Metropolis and The Oregonian, among others. Brian has also authored architectural monographs such as The Portland Building and Collaboration for a Cure: The Knight Cancer Research Building and the Culture of Innovation. An Oregon native and New York University graduate, Brian is also an award-winning filmmaker and photographer.

Filmmaker-exhibitor Matt McCormick: Back at the Boathouse

April 26, 2025Brian Libby

The longtime Portland experimental filmmaker and curator, now mentoring generations of filmmakers in Spokane, returns to the microcinema and studio where he first flourished.

In forests, Liza Faktor finds inspiration and consolation

April 19, 2025Brian Libby

The photographer and curator, half a world away from her native Russia, explores a deep, ongoing relationship with wilderness.

Portland Panorama: an ambitious new film festival debuts

April 7, 2025Brian Libby

With international and local fare, features and shorts, organizers of Panorama, which runs April 10-20, hope to fill the void left by numerous discontinued fests.

LEGO, vampires, cruise ships & Quonset huts: Q&A with Skylab Architecture’s Jeff Kovel

April 2, 2025Brian Libby

From its distinctive new headquarters, one of Portland’s most dynamic architecture firms looks beyond buildings.

Susan Seubert’s ‘Fragile Beauty’: Icebergs and the passage of time

March 15, 2025Brian Libby

The Portland photographer has led a dual career, traveling the world as a photojournalist and showing fine art in museums and galleries. At PDX Contemporary Art, her new iceberg show brings the two together.

Imported from Denmark: co-housing as community building

March 6, 2025Brian Libby

At Portland State University’s Shattuck Hall, the traveling "Boliglaboratorium" exhibit prompts a broader community conversation about housing’s social impact.

Modeling Portland’s past and future

February 18, 2025Brian Libby

The City of Possibility architectural-models exhibit and a series of public talks celebrate civic progress and aspire to build momentum to a "Renaissance within our reach."

The music is the message: A conversation with KMHD’s Matt Fleeger

February 7, 2025Brian Libby

The station’s longtime program director discusses the past, present and future of jazz radio in Portland.

My afternoon with David Lynch

January 20, 2025Brian Libby

In the wake of his death, remembering a 2001 interview at the Los Angeles home of the iconic filmmaker of "Twin Peaks" and "Mulholland Drive," and its ongoing inspiration.

(Double) Exposed to the Elements

October 27, 2024Brian Libby

Mike Vos discusses the journeys and breakthroughs leading to his new photography book, "Somewhere in Another Place."

John Montague’s ‘Willamette Greenway’ at Nine Gallery: the spirit of place

October 26, 2024Brian Libby

With hundreds of photographs and video shots taken over years, a former software engineer found his inner artist.

Touring the new Literary Arts headquarters, and turning the page

September 18, 2024Brian Libby

Executive director Andrew Proctor leads the way through a new Central Eastside office, bookstore, café, and event space scheduled to open in November.

A time of art, cuisine & making hay

August 11, 2024Brian Libby

Chef Naomi Pomeroy’s recent death brings to mind a quirky group art show in 2000 that elevated her career as well as the artists’ – and set a tone for a culturally emerging city.

The new Burnside Bridge: Options and choices

August 9, 2024Brian Libby

How best to replace Portland's busy east-west span? Bridge designer Keith Brownlie of Britain’s BEAM Architects parses the best choice from a sextet of arches and cable-stays. Now the bridge committee has selected an inverted "Y" cable stay design.

Japanese American Museum’s ‘Because of Bill’: An audacious life to learn from

July 8, 2024Brian Libby

An exhibit tells the extaordinary tale of businessman and civic leader Bill Naito, who lived through anti-Japanese fervor and made Portland a better city at a key time in its growth.

Artist Elise Wagner: Coast to Coast

June 11, 2024Brian Libby

With a June show at Astoria’s Imogen Gallery, the Oregon encaustic painter from New Jersey comes full-circle.

PSU doubles down on its performance hall bid

May 13, 2024Brian Libby

The university’s revised design proposal for a Keller Auditorium replacement offers two venues in one: a Keller-sized 3,000-seat hall and a versatile 1,200-seat companion space.

John Yeon and Pietro Belluschi’s sacred (and vulnerable) spaces

May 7, 2024Brian Libby

Buildings by Portland’s two greatest midcentury-modern architects – Belluschi's Central Lutheran Church and Yeon's wooded Jorgensen House – face uncertain futures.

Brian Lindstrom’s ‘Lost Angel’: Storytelling and bearing witness

April 8, 2024Brian Libby

Portland filmmaker Lindstrom discusses his new work “Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill” and a career profiling “hard-hit people living hard-hitting lives.”

Corvallis’s PRAx of life opens its doors

April 3, 2024Brian Libby

OSU’s new performance and exhibition space, a busy hub of activity from morning to evening, brings a chance to transform how people see the university – and it has an open house April 6.

Keller Auditorium’s future: Three options, one choice

March 18, 2024Brian Libby

The 3,000-seat Keller needs replacing. What's the best choice: a new building at PSU, a new hall at a revamped Lloyd Center, or a full-scale renovation where it is now?

Ready for takeoff: Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Live from the Northwest, 1959”

March 5, 2024Brian Libby

The recently-released album captures the quartet playing standards and film songs in Portland and Vancouver just before the recording of their ground-shaking classic “Time Out.”

Dennis Nyback: The show must go on

January 29, 2024Brian Libby

Fifteen months after the death of the legendary showman and collector of rare and offbeat films, friends and colleagues are rescuing his films and bringing them back into theaters.

Two conversations with Takahiro Iwasaki

November 5, 2023Brian Libby

The Hiroshima-based artist-in-residence at the Portland Japanese Garden’s Japan Institute discusses his parallel explorations of time, place, and what lies beneath.

Forty Years of ‘Princess’ Pride

October 23, 2023Brian Libby

"Quarterback Princess," a 1983 TV movie that kicked off two future Academy Award winners’ careers, is also a McMinnville (or rather, “Minnville”) time capsule.

Literary Arts Executive Director Andrew Proctor takes medical leave of absence

August 24, 2023Brian Libby

Amid the move to a new headquarters and other staff changes, the nonprofit – home of the Portland Book Festival and Oregon Book Awards – will be led by an interim director this fall.

Framing the Rothko Pavilion

August 24, 2023Brian Libby

The Portland Art Museum's redesigned, glass-ensconced addition, due to open in summer 2025, will make viewing easier and could be a boon to an ailing downtown.

Art review: Animal magnetism

July 26, 2023Brian Libby

The group exhibit “Biomass,” in a Pearl District warehouse space, reunites a contemporary art community after a lengthy pause.

Eva Lake shakes the tree

May 12, 2023Brian Libby

After a tumultuous few years, a recent self-curated show in her new home gave this venerable, multitalented artist a sense of agency and renewal.

Cultivating the Japanese Garden’s Japan Institute

April 24, 2023Brian Libby

Nestled beside Forest Park, the former Salvation Army White Shield Center is set to become a whole new cultural campus, devoted to classes, lectures and artist residencies.