Museum Project Pits Art Against Nature

Robert Malkin knows trees. The retired landscape architect sees them as art as much as nature, living sculptures that provide not only shade and serenity to busy urban streets but a certain grace as well.

Since he moved to La Jolla last year, the 56-year-old East Coast native has strolled the seaside village, enjoying the exotic palms and other trees that lend a leafy canopy to his neighborhood--especially the four stately sycamores standing guard at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art.

“They’re big trees, so they filter out a lot of the direct sunlight, providing a cooling effect on the area,” he said. “They are also visually pleasant, creating intricate shade patterns on Prospect Street. They are just beautiful things to behold.”

But Malkin worries that a planned museum expansion might buzz-saw all this beauty. Because of its concern that the trees might steal from the profile of its building, Malkin says, the museum plans to bulldoze his beloved trees.

In past weeks, the sycamores have ignited a debate in La Jolla over whether trees should take precedence over man-made art.

“Artists frequently draw inspiration from nature, so it seems contradictory to the creative process to destroy living beauty,” Anita Brynolf, an artist and design professor at Mesa College, wrote in a letter to a weekly newspaper.

“I would not wish my students to witness the destruction of living art for the sake of man-made art. Why doesn’t LJMCA respect the sycamore trees in the context of living sculptural form?”

The plan to replace the sycamores with what Malkin calls “telephone pole-like palms” is part of a $14-million expansion that will more than double the museum’s size over the next few years.

In the meantime, he contends, museum officials are neglecting the multi-trunked, 50-foot-tall trees, three of which have developed anthracnose--a potentially deadly leaf and stem fungus that causes early and continued leaf fall.

Malkin calls it “arborcide.”

“The museum does not want those trees blocking its view, no matter what,” he said. “They want to build a huge glass and concrete altar to art that will stand out on Prospect Street like some huge billboard. They resent being stuck behind a canopy of foliage.”

The expansion plans, he said, are a “classic case of too much ambition.”

“I’m not a tree-hugger,” Malkin said. “But there must be other ways to go rather than sacrifice these trees for art’s sake. The sycamores have much more expressive beauty to offer the community than any modern art they might hang in their museum.”

Museum officials say that, although the expansion plans indeed call for the removal of the sycamores, they will be replaced with the more adaptable palm trees. In the meantime, they say, every effort is being made to treat the anthracnose, described as the common cold of trees.

During the summer, Malkin decided to take action. In July, he appealed to Mayor Maureen O’Connor about the 40-year-old trees, which were transplanted to the museum site during a previous renovation in 1960.

“She got kind of poetic about it,” Malkin recalled. “She said ‘I love those trees’ and said she used to admire them a lot on strolls through La Jolla.”

Last month, at the mayor’s request, city planners went to inspect the sycamores.

On Thursday, city landscape planner Marcela Escobar-Oliver met with museum Associate Director Norman Hannay to review horticulture records on the care and upkeep of the trees and to make another examination. Her finding: The museum is doing nothing wrong.

“They showed me that they had certified arborists on the site as early as July, 1987, and have taken numerous steps to stem the disease,” she said. “The people at the museum have been very cooperative about sharing the records of what they’ve done.”

Escobar-Oliver said that anthracnose is almost inevitable for sycamores in cities like San Diego because moisture from coastal fog becomes trapped in the leaf canopy. Often, she said, little can be done to prevent the disease.

“Horticulture experts will say not to even plant them in San Diego,” she said, “because they’re so susceptible to the disease.”

Diane Maxwell, a museum spokeswoman, said officials have authorized both spring and fall pruning of the trees as well as a regular spraying for the disease.

“We’re not willfully neglecting these trees or doing anything to make them unhealthy,” she said. “But our plans do call for these trees to eventually be replaced by palm trees.”

The planned expansion, which calls for a restaurant, an artist-in-residence apartment and major space for a continuing contemporary art exhibit, is in the design and development stage and will not be submitted to the museum’s board for final approval until early next year, Maxwell said.

Nonetheless, the trees do not fit into the architectural style they have chosen for the structure, she said.

“When it comes time, we will be willing to work with community groups if they want to move the trees,” Maxwell said.

In the eyes of most La Jollans, Maxwell said, the tree issue is anything but a debate between art and nature.

“Mr. Malkin is a newcomer to La Jolla. It just surprises me that he would make such assumptions about what La Jollans think and feel.”

Malkin said he plans to circulate several petitions to gauge public support of the issue. “People care,” he said.