NOTE: This essay is from Harriet Gill’s book Essays, originally written and presented on KPBS Radio in the ’80’s.
At the age of 94 in 2007, Ms. Gill self-published a collection of her essays. These books are no longer available,
so FSDA will occasionally offer some of the essays on our website.
Several things have happened in my thinking the last few months that give body to a tracery of ideas that I have had for many years. I am an architecture buff. I love to look and to read about it. An afternoon in the library with architecture magazines from all over the world is my idea of a weekday treat. Why my interest?
We live, surrounded by architecture: gardens came before buildings, and landscape has become an integral part of the science and art of architecture. Our very bodies are architectural. Architecture is a language akin to music, which we see and hear as well as live in.
But do we understand it? There are many questions to be asked. There is increasing attention to the state of architecture in our town since the cool breeze of an outside judgment came to us last spring. On the occasion of the AIA honor awards for outstanding design in architecture, the visiting architects imported to give their assessment said “Sterile”, “unimaginative”, “not taking advantage as we should of our glorious natural asset, the sunny and starry skies of San Diego”.
I have wanted to be part of a group who seeks to learn about architecture and its meaning for our city. I had an agreeable response to this idea from people who had read my letter to the Union Tribune last September. I’ve been savoring the next step for after the turn of the year: a meeting for those interested to talk about how to begin a group to be known as “Friends of San Diego Architecture”.
We’ve been having some impressive help from the San Diego Union’s Sunday Home Section articles on architecture. And I am the very interested recipient of a magazine from the New School of Architecture in Chula Vista. I have been sent the winter edition of Off the Wall and I have read every word with joy and interest and welcome it as a genuine effort on the part of the professional architects to clue us in on what they are up to. Though not written specifically for the lay person, enough can be picked out from the articles to form the basis of several discussion meetings of the “as yet unborn” Friends of San Diego Architecture.
Sunday’s Home Section of the Union reviewed the Orchids and Onions awards at the La Jolla Museum of Art. I was present at this gathering on November 9th. Don’t feel despair at having missed this delightful evening; it will come again next year. Did you know that anyone of us could have nominated a building or a space for an orchid or an onion? Three hundred nominations were received and eighteen awards given.
The Orchids and Onions presentation evening began with hors d’oeuvres from four countries, served outdoors but under roof. As the pictures of the winners were shown on screen, conflicting emotions reigned: orchid admiration, and for the onions: hilarity, incredulity—could this really have been designed and built?—and sadness mixed with rage. Not all of the onion winners were present to accept their awards, but those that were made a brave showing of courage under fire.
The first speaker was a jury member who also was a 1982 Onion winner. Dr. Leon Sinder endeared himself to everyone immediately. He knew he had been given two and a half minutes to make his statement. He held up his forty-five minute script and cheerfully announced that he would forego it, and just as cheerfully proceeded to electrify us (in 11 ½ minutes) with his bold truths about the state of the building scene here in San Diego. It was indeed a jeremiad, and we loved it. His arrows flew true to the heart of his belief: our value system is askew—disgusting was his word; open greed is extremely marked and highly rewarded. Our builders and developers lack civitas: a proper return to the city that enriched them. Planners hold with sterile rules; aesthetics is a dirty word. Bankers make the final judgment as to what is beautiful: a travesty! Our city is divided between night and day: machines move us to work, and back to where we live. Downtown at night is dead; La Jolla after 11 is a ghost city. In shopping centers, there is not one garden, or public art, or diorama; not one place where commercialism is not pervasive. Where, he asks, is the place that people can sit, a place that is given to the city? The Medici of our day are in control.
Ted Lightner of Channel 8 was Master of Ceremonies and steered the rest of the exuberant evening with high personal charm.
Next year, friends, nominate and go….to Orchids and Onions. And, do you want more information about Friends of San Diego Architecture? Send me that envelope with a stamp.
November 1984 from Harriet Gill’s book, ESSAYS