1.11.2011

Place // San Diego, CA

Though there are few truly vital reasons to leave LA's urban soup for San Diego's relative towniness, there are a few compelling ones. Most of them involve fantastic CaliMex food, the insane Tijuana border--for which I had neither the stones nor the time to visit, instead choosing to guide my lovely female companions to relative safety/sanity--and NFL football, SoCal-style. But if you're a student of architecture, conquistadors, or just like the beach, it's worth a look. But first a little history...

The area was first explored by Spanish explorer Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602 and named for a Spanish saint, San Diego de Alcalá. In 1769, a group of Spanish missionaries established a permanent colony on a site now known as "Old Town" San Diego. Later, the colony transformed into a military outpost, displacing the missionaries a few miles to the east, and was the location of a few small skirmishes between Spanish soliders and the indigenous Native American tribe, the Kumeyaay. Mexico gained indepedence from Spain in 1821 and San Diego progressed under Mexican jurisdiction until the resolution of the Mexican-American War in 1850 (known as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) ceded the city to the U.S.

Downtown San Diego takes full advantage of the lucrative combination of seaside splendor and impeccable weather. The urban center backs right up onto the bay (framing a wonderful panoramic from the Coronado Bay Bridge) and is only a ten minute or so drive from Mission Beach, where mentally-confused  backwards individuals with a bizarro love for crashing waves and freezing water surf year round. "Old Town" is now a predictable and kitsch tourist trap, but nearby Mission Hills is a decent place to grab a Cali-style surf-and-turf burrito - a local specialty fully-loaded with steak, shrimp, avocado, and...wait for it...french fries. Lucho Libre Gourmet Taco Shop (featured on Travel Channel's Man vs. Food) is the joint for quite possibly the heaviest but most delicious wrapped food brick you will ever eat.

[If you've never been to the West Coast, as I had not prior to my USC experience, then it's likely you've never seen the sun set over the ocean, unless you live in south Florida on the Gulf. And that's a shame.]
[This is the traditional winter time activity of San Diego teens.]

---Good spots for [modern] architectural sightseeing---

Salk Insitute (15 mins north of San Diego in La Jolla)

Tourists beware: Louis Kahn's west coast masterpiece is, unfortunately, only open to the public during the week Monday-Friday, as the building's labs and offices are still in operation. Though that causes some pain to weekend road-trippers like myself, it is still worth the slight detour to observe the proper harmony of architecture and its natural context. The building embraces this relationship with far more austerity than what I would call its sister building in Los Angeles, the Getty Center. Intricate detail, attention to vistas and public outdoor space, weathering of the wood panels caused by sea air, etc. all add to the building's architectural allure. Outside of the site, the building is isolated from the neighboring UCSD campus, which is a bit disappointing.

[Love the wood.]
[We went on a cold, overcast day when the Institute was closed...and it still looked nice.]
[Couldn't get the history-book money shot, but this is good enough.]

Geisel Library, UCSD (Also La Jolla)

William Pereira is most famous for the TransAmerica Building in San Francisco (the spikey-pyramid highrise), but his work in the Southern California region is incredibly extensive and includes several nice buildings on the USC campus and the original LACMA buildings. His buildings ranged in style and language (Googie, Brutalist, High Modern, etc.) but seemed to remained distinctly regional. He is also well known as pioneering the use of pre-cast concrete panels as both functional (shading) and elegant decorative devices. Several well-known architects have emerged under his tutelage, including Frank Gehry.

His building at UCSD, recently renamed in honor of Dr. Seuss author Theodore Geisel, exhibits several common, recurring elements of Pereira's ouevre: pedestal parti, futuristic look, surrounded by water or a valley, and built from concrete.

[Photography by my crap digicam. Time for a new one? Yes.]

Gaslamp Quarter / San Diego Convention Center

No noteworthy buildings that I could see, but the Gaslamp Quarter is a new development in a vein similar to Atlantic Station and The Grove but which integrates a major sports arena (Petco Park), a convention center, a bridge, and a commercial district  in a far more seamless and attractive manner. And I think the Convention Center was in Demolition Man. But I can't be certain....wait....HE WAS PRESIDENT?? Farewell, Governator.

I KNOW I promised an update from last semester. I guarantee it's coming soon...

2 comments:

  1. I am lacking some pictures of San Diego's downtown...hopefully I will make a return visit to rectify this discrepancy

    ReplyDelete