14 Best Sights in Portland, Oregon

The treasures at the Pacific Northwest's oldest arts facility span 35 centuries of Asian, European, and American art—it's an impressive collection for a midsize city. A high point is the Center for Native American Art, with regional and contemporary art from more than 200 indigenous groups. The Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art contains six floors devoted entirely to modern art, including a small but superb photography gallery, with the changing selection chosen from more than 5,000 pieces in the museum's permanent collection. The film center, known as PAM CUT, presents a variety of screenings and festivals. Also, take a moment to linger in the peaceful outdoor sculpture garden. Kids under 18 are admitted free.

On Saturdays year-round, local farmers, bakers, chefs, and entertainers converge at the South Park Blocks near the PSU campus for Oregon's largest open-air farmers' market—it's one of the most impressive in the country. It's a great place to sample the regional bounty and to witness the local-food obsession that's revolutionized Portland's culinary scene. There's plenty of food you can eat on the spot, plus nonperishable local items (wine, hazelnuts, chocolates, vinegars) you can take home with you. There's a smaller Wednesday market, May through November, on a different section of the Park Blocks (between S.W. Salmon and S.W. Main). At other times the Portland Farmers Market is held in different locations around town, and dozens of other farmers' markets take place throughout metro Portland.

Sandwiched between the Pioneer Square area and the upscale Pearl District, this triangular patch of vintage buildings—interspersed with a handful of contemporary ones—has evolved since the early 2000s into one of the city's most eclectic hubs of fashion, nightlife, and dining. Boutique hotels like the Ace and Sentinel rank among the city's trendiest addresses. Along Harvey Milk Street, formerly the heart of Portland's LGBTQ+ scene, there's still a popular gay bar, but now you'll also find noteworthy restaurants and lounges, and plenty of indie boutiques.

The elegant, etched-graphite central staircase and elaborate ceiling ornamentation make this no ordinary library. With a gallery space on the second floor and famous literary names engraved on the walls, the Georgian-style building is well worth a walk around. A free 20-minute tour of the impressive eco-roof garden is given a few times a month during the spring and summer seasons; call or go online for the required pre-registration.

During the 1920s these parks were segregated by gender—a leafy reminder of how much society has progressed in the past century: Chapman, between Madison and Main Streets, was reserved for women, and Lownsdale, between Main and Salmon Streets, was for men. The elk statue on Main Street, which separates the parks, was given to the city by David Thompson, mayor from 1879 to 1882. It recalls the elk that grazed in the area in the 1850s.

Low on greenery but high on gathering space, this 2009 addition to the city's downtown park blocks was designed as a public piazza—it hides a 700-space parking garage below. A glass canopy–light display provides cover, and a fountain dedicated to teachers cools off summer visitors. Chess players enjoy the giant (it's 16 feet square) board with 25-inch-high pieces, available on a first-come, first-served basis. There's a branch of Elephants Delicatessen—great for salads, deli sandwiches, chocolates, and wine by the glass and bottle—with both indoor and outdoor seating adjacent to the piazza.

A widely lauded example of public landscape architecture, this series of 18-foot-high stone waterfalls gushes across from the front entrance of the Keller Auditorium—a cool spot to dip your toes on a summer day. Each minute, 13,000 gallons of water fall and churn through the fountain's cascading platforms.

This building erected in 1882 is a prime example of Carpenter Gothic architecture. Tall spires and original stained-glass windows enhance its exterior of rough-cut lumber. The acoustically resonant church hosts free classical concerts at noon each Wednesday. If you're lucky, you'll get to hear one of the few operating Hook & Hastings tracker pipe organs. Check the Old Church calendar for other special events such as the blues and jazz series. Tickets are reasonably priced, especially for the caliber of performance.

Impressive eight-story-high trompe l'oeil murals of Lewis and Clark and the Oregon Trail invite history lovers into this Downtown museum, which goes beyond the dominant narratives of white colonists and explorers to tell the story of the state through myriad perspectives, from prehistoric times through the racist era of “black-exclusion” laws to the challenges of the present day. The state-of-the-art permanent exhibit Experience Oregon, comprises 7,000 square feet of interactive galleries displaying a pair of 9,000-year-old sagebrush sandals, an actual covered wagon, and hands-on games.

Often billed as the living room, public heart, and commercial soul of Downtown, Pioneer Square is not entirely square, but rather an amphitheater-like brick piazza featuring five food carts. Special seasonal, charitable, and festival-oriented events often take place in this premier people-watching venue. Directly across the street is one of Downtown Portland's most familiar landmarks, the classically sedate Pioneer Courthouse; built in 1869, it's the oldest public building in the Pacific Northwest. A couple of blocks east of the square, you'll find Pioneer Place Mall, an upscale retail center that spans four city blocks.

Portlandia, the second-largest hammered-copper statue in the world, surpassed only by the Statue of Liberty, kneels on the second-story balcony of one of the earliest postmodern buildings in the United States. Built in 1982, and architect Michael Graves's first major design commission, this 15-story office building is buff color, with brown-and-blue trim and exterior decorative touches. Locals tend to either love or hate it, and its current need for a nearly $100 million renovation has plenty of critics calling—probably in vain—for its demolition. A huge fiberglass mold of Portlandia's face is exhibited in the second-floor Public Art Gallery, which provides a good overview of Portland's 1% for Art Program, and the hundreds of works on display throughout the city.

The "old building" and the hub of activity here is the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, host to the Oregon Symphony, musical events of many genres, and lectures. Across Main Street, but still part of the center, is Antoinette Hatfield Hall, which is home to the casual and convenient Artbar & Bistro and the 304-seat Delores Winningstad Theatre, used for plays and special performances. Its stage design and dimensions are based on those of an Elizabethan-era stage. The 880-seat Newmark Theatre is also inside Hatfield Hall.

Named for a former governor revered for his statewide land-use planning initiatives, this park stretches north along the Willamette River for about a mile from near the historic Hawthorne Bridge to Steel Bridge. Broad and grassy, Waterfront Park affords a fine ground-level view of Downtown Portland's bridges and skyline. Once an expressway, it's now the site for many annual celebrations, among them the Rose Festival, classical and blues concerts, Portland Pride, Cinco de Mayo, and the Oregon Brewers Festival. The arching jets of water at the Salmon Street Fountain change configuration every few hours, and are a favorite cooling-off spot during the dog days of summer. Both the Hawthorne Bridge and Steel Bridge offer dedicated pedestrian lanes, allowing joggers, cyclists, and strollers to make a full loop along both banks of the river, via Vera Katz Eastside Esplanade.

Light-rail trains glide by many examples of 19th-century cast-iron architecture on the MAX line between the Skidmore and Yamhill stations, where the streets are closed to cars. Take a moment at the Yamhill station to glance around at these old buildings, which have intricate rooflines and facades. Nearby, on Southwest Naito Parkway at Taylor Street, is Mill Ends Park, which sits in the middle of a traffic island. This patch of whimsy, at 24 inches in diameter, has been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's smallest official city park.