The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Nineteen works of San Diego art, architecture and planning were recognized as either excellent or mediocre at Friday night’s annual Orchids and Onions awards, presented at Symphony Hall in downtown San Diego.

Twelve likable projects received the flowers, and seven with flaws were presented the onions. Fifteen thousand nomination forms were mailed, twice as many as last year, yet the number of entries increased only slightly. Apparently, San Diegans remain apathetic about their architecture. Overall, jurors did an admirable job of selecting winners from among the 450 nominations by the public.

But the process has shortcomings, and a couple of this year’s choices were debatable.

The jury included representatives from several professional design organizations: architects Richard Bundy and Bruce Peeling; land use planner Steve Silverman; interior designer Patricia Jasper; landscape architect Bill Burton; Escondido city planner Brian Smith and three non-design types: custom home builder Richard Wodehouse, Port District official Dan Wilkens, and Kip Howard, an executive with developer Torrey Enterprises.

Larger Context Considered

Perhaps to limit friction within the architectural profession, jurors are instructed to recognize projects primarily for how they work in a larger context of urban design. The organizers hope to educate the public about what makes good cities, not single out architects. Awards are actually presented to building owners, and names of architects for the projects are not divulged during the awards program. Perhaps they should be. Architects are largely culpable for both the abominations and sensitive creations.

Clearly, the jury had inordinately strong feelings about a couple of projects.

Architect Tom Grondona’s office for a dentist on Adams Avenue in Kensington, recently honored as a breakthrough design by Progressive Architecture magazine, received about a dozen “Onion” nominations, more than any other project. The jury agreed with the nominating citizens.

“Form follows gingivitis,” read the jury’s summary remarks. “Novocain can’t soothe the pain of this inverted wisdom tooth that even exposes its roots. It’s a white blight that puts the bite on Kensington.”

Grondona, one of San Diego’s most adventurous architects, designed interior spaces that work well. But an exterior that grafts part of an old tile-roofed bungalow onto a new, aggressive addition taller than its immediate neighbors is hardly a successful composition.

The jury found another sore spot: the new 22-story Ramada Hotel on K Street in downtown San Diego, just east of the Gaslamp Quarter. It was designed by staff architects at Concrete Dynamics, which also built the hotel.

“Ouch! Like a sharp stick in the eye,” the jury wrote. “It’s a building that brutally assaults the street and robs the neighborhood of its scale and humanity.”

The award was timely, since planners for the nearby historic Gaslamp Quarter are considering taller hotels as a means of revitalization. But jurors said they don’t necessarily object to all buildings in the area.

“I think that, properly designed, the Ramada would have been OK,” Bundy said. “I’m one who actually favors some taller buildings at the south end of the Gaslamp Quarter.”

The new Escondido City Hall, designed by Pacific Associates Planners & Architects, is a fine building that captures some of the light, romantic character of the buildings in Balboa Park. Unquestionably, its Orchid was well deserved. So was the one given to architect Rob Quigley’s Linda Vista Branch Library, with its quirky exterior and wonderfully daylighted interior spaces. A visit to several of the projects showed that your average Joe often agreed with the awards.

Onion in Normal Heights

On Adams Avenue, right under the Normal Heights sign, is an experiment in commercial revitalization that fails in almost every way. The result: an Onion.

“I’ve been here 40 years, and I’ve never seen such a mess,” said Dorsey Southward, who owns Progressive Shoe Repair near the sign. Deep striations in new, wider sidewalks don’t add much visually, but they do a great job of trapping cigarette butts, Southward said. Several $2,100 street trees purchased by local merchants were bulldozed to make way for the “improvements.” Geometric red concrete patterns inserted in the street at two key intersections look like a Navajo rug weaving gone amok.

And, although businesses were given financial aid toward face lifting storefronts, there is no continuity or good design. Instead, the strip is a chaotic mishmash of new striped awnings, brick, commercial aluminum windows and ugly signage that smother the charm of many fine period stucco buildings.

On a couple of counts, the jury made questionable calls.

Most notable was the Onion given to Les Girls topless bar off Rosecrans Street, in recognition of “A hodgepodge of signs so jumbled it couldn’t titillate a prurient interest.”

But Les Girls doesn’t have the only loud signs in the area. Others tower over burger joints, a discount stereo store and auto dealerships in a neighborhood primarily full of low warehouse buildings. For years, visitors to San Diego, mostly male, have sought out this area at night as they would North Beach in San Francisco.

Harmless Tokens of Culture

One sign reads “Nude In.” Another says “Lingerie and Leather.” Who could fail to see them with some sense of humor? These are merely tokens of contemporary culture. In this particular setting, they seem harmless.

“I agree,” Bundy responded, “but I was on the lone end of the vote. Les Girls has been there for a long time. I view it somewhat like the fascination (architect Robert) Venturi has for Las Vegas.”

A marginal choice for an Orchid was the new interior of the classical revival Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard, handled by designer Patrick Maddux. Several aspects of the renovation are admirable: new French doors that open out on the pool, subtle lighting in coffered ceilings and daylight let in by a new fabric roof.

But the minty pinks and greens chosen for fabrics and carpeting are trendy colors that seem to appear these days in almost every project by professional interior designers, from model homes to offices. There’s too much slickness and too little warmth at the Lafayette. Also, the detailing on the fabric roof--especially the way huge bolts jut into the space like wayward swords--mars the interior’s otherwise smooth look.

Pressure by 1 Juror

One juror mentioned that the Orchid given Cilantro’s restaurant in Rancho Santa Fe was largely the result of consistent pressure exerted by one juror. In fact, several did not feel the project was worthy of the award. The biggest disappointment of the awards program was its failure to recognize the largest source of visual blight on San Diego’s terrain: several poorly planned, blandly designed large housing tracts. Awards committee Chairman Brad Burke explained that the design of a single tract house doesn’t meet the criterion of urban design. But surely there are countless tracts that deserve Onions strung from the knockers of their identical front doors.

The following is a complete list of winners:

ORCHIDS: Linda Vista Library; make over of the Great Western building on Broadway in downtown San Diego; Escondido City Hall, for architecture, landscape design and interiors; mural on Market Street at Fifth Avenue; “Heart of the City” master plan for San Marcos; Tiger River exhibit at the San Diego Zoo; Night Visions art installations in Balboa Park on Park Boulevard; “Winged Runner” sculpture at Sea World; beach reclamation project at Sail Bay; Chula Vista Nature Interpretive Center on the waterfront; Lafayette Hotel interior; interior of Cilantro’s restaurant in Rancho Santa Fe.

ONIONS: Kensington Dental Office; Ramada Hotel in downtown San Diego; Pt. Loma condominiums at Rosecrans and Talbot; signage at Les Girls; Balboa Park Nursery on Pershing near Upas; Adams Avenue Demonstration Block; San Diego Unified Port District’s arts program.

DESIGN NOTES: San Diego architect Wendy Ornelas, working on a graduate degree at Oklahoma State University’s architecture school, finished second in the prestigious Paris Prize Competition. Her design for a hypothetical urban zoological preserve somewhere in the southern United States wins her $4,000, to be used for travel to architecturally significant places. . . . Did the San Diego Historical Society get shortchanged? It sold the historic Sweet residence by Richard Requa and Frank Mead in Bankers Hill for $665,000 less than a year ago, saying it needed the money for such projects as its new museum. The buyers, having made some improvements, have it back on the market for $1.2 million. . . . The San Diego Historical Society’s Horticulture Heritage Committee presents a program on Craftsman era gardens Nov. 19, 1 p.m., in the education room of the Serra Museum in Presidio Park.