Convention Center: A Site to See : Design: Form and function meet masterfully in Arthur Erickson’s building, which marks a turning point for San Diego architecture.

Architect Arthur Erickson’s masterful downtown convention center holds several lessons in good design. Erickson has executed downtown’s first major piece of pure architectural genius, with form and function fully integrated. With his subtle references to the waterfront, Erickson shows that there are other ways to tie a building to this city than to look to the missions.

The center marks a significant turning point in the history of contemporary architecture here.

Erickson, from Vancouver, has proven that a building can be uniquely suited to this city without making any references to the missions and other early California buildings. Erickson’s design includes no arches, decorative tile, domed towers or stucco made to look like thick adobe.

Instead, true to his reputation, Erickson has paid close attention to the site and its surroundings in selecting his basic forms. With its rooftop fabric tent, huge circular vent pipes, and sail-like concrete supports, the convention center captures much of the imagery and energy of the waterfront without being too literal or cute.

The design has an unadorned purity that should appeal to neophytes and hard-nosed design connoisseurs alike. It’s a thoughtful marriage of form and function. With its dramatic system of triangular concrete support “gantrys,” Erickson has made the primary structural elements double as a visual theme.

“I’ve always felt that the structure is the reality of the building,” Erickson said. “You need to show how it is held up. Structure has always been one of the main focuses of expression in architecture, for both technical and aesthetic reasons.”

The “lobby,” an 1,100-foot corridor outside the main exhibition hall along Harbor Drive, is also a case of structure doubling as design feature.

Four giant escalators, together with the central stairway, become powerful concrete diagonals ascending through the soaring space like raw sculptures. The stairs will soon be covered with red stippled rubber as part of a scheme of primary waterfront-palette colors Erickson fought to retain.

Giant corridors run the length of the center, open to blue sky, clouds and bay and skyline views through vaulted ceilings half made of glass.

By necessity, the basic layout of the building is simple: a huge central exhibition space on the ground floor, with a grand ballroom, smaller meeting rooms and a giant kitchen above, topped by the tented, open-air exhibition space and tennis courts for the use of Marriott Hotel guests.

Erickson continued the nautical imagery in the main exhibition hall, an open expanse of more than 6 acres. Giant blue ventilator pipes jut into the space on side walls like stacks or big portholes on an ocean liner.

The ceiling is supported by 12 piers, which resemble the bases of the giant cranes used to load nearby ships. These contain the hall’s heating and air-conditioning equipment.

Erickson said he had originally specified a dropped ceiling to conceal lighting and other equipment. Instead, budget constraints limited this treatment to the areas immediately next to the 12 piers, but the visible ceiling system of concrete-and-steel supports seems like an honest mode of design expression in keeping with the architect’s philosophies.

These internal dramas are only preludes to the explosive excitement on the upper levels and public terraces behind the center.

No other building in San Diego can claim the kind of pure architectural drama created by the fabric tents over the 108,000-square-foot outdoor exhibition space on the roof. Engineered by New York fabric roofs specialist Horst Berger, who also did fabric roofs for the Sea World Pavilion in San Diego, the tents add a sort of spare, Arabian desert mystique.

To look out from beneath them is to see, once again, the coherence of Erickson’s vision. Giant guy wires and trusses tie the tents to the concrete gantrys, visually paraphrasing the huge shipping cranes in the harbor. Stretched taut in graceful curves, the tents are like the sails of the many boats in the bay. Big blue funnels beneath the edges of the roof channel rainwater into downspouts. These collectors are reminiscent of the large, simple hardware on oceangoing vessels.

Thankfully, Erickson, local architects and other power brokers convinced the San Diego Unified Port District and the San Diego City Council that Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s idea to cut the budget by axing the tent was a bad one.

Erickson was the only architect competing for this job who proposed underground parking. The cost in headaches and dollars was high, but the lower waterfront profile was well worth it.

For all of its architectural successes, the center stands a chance of never maximizing one of its primary goals: to make its dramatic back terraces easily accessible to the public.

These open-air view platforms and a small amphitheater can be reached by non-conventioneers via a waterfront path that wraps the bayfront.

But what about people who want to walk to the center from the Gaslamp Quarter, just across Harbor Drive, or from the many new hotels, apartments and luxury condominiums nearby?

There are public stairs to one side of the center and a path leading to the back terraces. Erickson had planned for two pedestrian bridges to cross Harbor Drive, but with the “linear park” landscaping project and many new developments about to change the terrain here, the city is unsure as to how or where any bridges might be built or whether they ever will be, says Max Schmidt, Centre City Development Corp. assistant vice president.

With car traffic and frequent trolleys running along a bayfront line scheduled to begin operations next March, pedestrians will have to wait at stoplights and take their chances. A bridge or two could be a dramatic design feature, making the center seem much more like a project for all San Diego.

Another shortcoming is the quality of the concrete work, especially on the back terraces. Despite efforts to quell his dissatisfaction, Erickson is not happy with the uneven work. Contrasted with the beautifully precise concrete at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, the Convention Center’s concrete is barely average. Erickson still hopes the port will refinish some concrete surface after sandblasting or bush-hammering them, but a port spokesman was unsure of immediate plans to improve them. Such an undertaking would add to an already unwieldy budget of $158.5 million, well over the original $125-million projection.

But now that the center has taken its place as one of the city’s few architectural landmarks, it should serve as a model for city-run competitions seeking similar quality, even if it costs a little more.