Esoteric Survey

While I was at Southwestern College a few weeks ago checking out the original buildings before they get demolished ,  I paid a visit to "Dark" by Bruce Nauman. The sculpture is "a 4’ by 4’ by 4” thick solid steel slab with the word “DARK” written on the bottom. It was purchased as part of the Annual Purchase Award Exhibit: Outdoor Sculpture April 19 - May 10, 1968. $1900 of student funds were used to pay Nauman for the work.  Source: SPEAKOUT , Southwestern College Art Gallery, The First Decade It was a controversy before it was even out of concept form.   Source: Chula Vista Star News, 1968 Little old ladies in tennis shoes did not start this fire. Source: Chula Vista Star News, 1968 Bob Matheny makes a great point.  Source: Chula Vista Star News, 1968 John Baldessari was an instructor at Southwestern College at the time and wrote an essay in defense of "Dark". Here are some of his key points, which are so good and so Baldessari. Read the full essay here ....

Mayan Hall (1968) at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California is on the chopping block.  The planetarium (1967), along with almost every other original building on the campus are all slated to be demolished as part of the college's Facilities Master Plan . The plan has been nominated for an Onion in The San Diego Architecture Foundation's annual Orchids & Onions .    The project started in 1961 with local architect George Foster heading the design. Foster was born in National City and was the Sweetwater High School District architect. He also designed the High School I went to.  Source: Chula Vista Star News Source: Chula Vista Star News George Foster is the suit on the right. Source: Chula Vista Star News Foster designed the school in a "Modern Mayan" style to pay  homage to California's pre-European history. 1963 Site Plan. Construction of this phase was completed in 1964. Source: Chula Vista Star News Source:  2018 Facilities Master Plan The P...

I met my mom for a walk on Mother's Day. She wanted to go to downtown Chula Vista, where we both grew up. There is a surprising amount of good architecture left in the old commercial area. One of the sweetest is this 1939 Streamline Moderne doctor's office.  Apparently this was my doctor's office when I was a baby. McCausland-Robinson Clinic. The office was started by Dr. William McCausland, his son John and Dr. Frank Robinson.  Source: Chula Vista Star The Vogue opened in 1945. Frank Hope Jr. was the architect It closed in 2006 and it seems like every year there is a new plan to bring it back to life. 

For years I've had a childhood memory of playing in a space age bubble. I asked my mom and she had no idea what I was talking about. My deep digging on the web never provided any leads. I remembered it was in Rohr Park in Chula Vista, which also had a mini railroad. Last week, after talking to a friend who also had memories of the bubble, I decided to do another search. It paid off.   Source: Chula Vista Star News This is the one I played on. It was constructed in 1978.  It went by many names, such as Soap Bubble Castle, Bubble Maze, Curved Space Diamond System, or Curved Space Labyrinth. The Lexan plastic structure is a "nature-based, large scale, sculptural system that maps the geometry of a diamond crystal at approximately 16 billion times its actual size".  Peter Jon Pearce created the Curved Space Diamond System to demonstrate built environments patterned after natural structures. Much along the same lines as the  Metabolism ...