Nostalgia Shows Its Ugly Side on the Prado

Planners have a word for the kind of thing that’s about to happen in Balboa Park. They call it facade-omy.

The nasty word refers to attempts to re-create history by using replica period facades. More often than not, such dreamy evocations of the past lack the practical flexibility needed to address a variety of contemporary architectural problems.

Next month, construction is scheduled to begin on the first of two arcades planned for the heart of the park, an effort to restore some of what was there in 1915 when the park’s signature buildings were built for the Panama-California Exposition.

The arcades are the work of the Committee of 100, a private group whose goal is to return the park to its original form. They raised $360,000 to pay for the first arcade.

What, exactly, is an arcade? In this case, it’s a free-standing, 206-foot-long covered pedestrian walkway, with open arches on both sides. In effect, it will extend the pattern of arches and pedestrian circulation of the buildings lining the Prado, the wide pedestrian mall that runs through the center of the park.

This first arcade will begin near the lily pond, stretch along the south edge of the Timken Gallery and culminate with a corner piece matching the ornately detailed Spanish Colonial corner of the House of Hospitality.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It will provide a stronger sense of symmetry to the Prado and will match, in scale and detailing, existing arcades.

But it will also hide the Timken Gallery’s small modern building behind a period replica. This may be exactly what the arcade’s promoters want, but it’s hardly an example of sensitive planning.

The Timken, designed by longtime San Diego architect Frank Hope Sr., was built in 1965. It is a classic example of the stark, modern architectural style that remained popular through the 1960s. It is a modified box covered with smooth, off-white travertine stone and detailed with restrained bronze fretwork, with cutouts for entrances and courtyards .

Built by the Timken family to house the Putnam Collection, which includes paintings by such masters as Rembrandt, Rubens, Corot, Boucher and Fragonard, the Timken has long been the bane of hard-core historicists, who see its design as a rude intrusion on the park’s Spanish Colonial heritage.

Really, it’s not a bad building. Tall windows around inset courtyards and patios scoop in natural light. Instead of spending money on architectural flourishes, the museum’s founders put the bulk of their budget into security, lighting, air conditioning and humidity control--essentials for housing valuable art.

The real problem is that the building doesn’t fit its context. In scale and style, it doesn’t relate to the period buildings around it, and its entrances don’t tie it to the Prado.

Rather than offering an improvement to the situation, the new arcade will only make it worse. A more provocative idea would have been to add an entry to the Timken through the existing courtyard facing the Prado and somehow relate this entry to the Prado.

The new arcade will cut the Timken off from view like a bastard cousin.

A second proposed arcade would span part of this same north edge of the Prado, partly hiding the San Diego Museum of Art’s west wing (another above-average 1960s building that doesn’t match nearby historical buildings) and adjacent sculpture garden.

San Diego architects Wheeler Wimer Blackman were hired by the Committee of 100 to design the arcades, but they won’t comment on the plans.

Committee of 100 President Pat LaMarce has designated herself the sole spokesperson on the project. And she couldn’t explain exactly how the second arcade will work.

On the architects’ plan, part of it looks similar to the Timken arcade, but the portion next to the sculpture garden appears to have only a front wall. LaMarce said it will have two sides all the way.

There’s no indication of how it will address the southern entrance to the sculpture garden.

At the very least, it will block the view of the art museum’s sculpture garden that greets motorists as they enter the park after crossing the Cabrillo Bridge.

Both arcades ignore one important fact: The park is not the same place it was in 1915, when such arcades were used to guide people to museum entrances. In effect, they served as public front porches.

The new arcades don’t serve any such purpose. Instead, building them is the worst kind of facade-omy, a superficial and misguided attempt to re-create the richness of a bygone era.

According to LaMarce and key city officials, the arcades have gone through all necessary levels of approval. An environmental report prepared by the city Planning Department detected no negative impacts. The National Park Service, which has registered most of the park’s key buildings as historic landmarks, had no qualms with the arcades, according to city Planner Ron Buckley, who works on park issues.

But the arcades never went before the Central Balboa Park Assn., which represents 27 cultural institutions in the park. LaMarce had promised to present the arcades to the group, but never came to a meeting. She attributed her absence to a busy schedule and the fact that the city didn’t require association approval.

To some association members, the process and the arcades have a bad smell.

“This notion of trying to re-create 1915 is not valid. These things will be Disneyland stage sets,” said architect Dick Bundy, the association’s president, who represents the Natural History Museum.

“I’m vehemently against it,” said Nancy Peterson, director of the Timken. “I talked to several people, including (City Council member) Bob Filner. He said it passed through all the proper committees, that it even passed through the Central Balboa Park Assn. Committee. That’s an out-and-out lie. It was never brought to us.”

The arcades are not included in the newest park master plan, approved last July. Generally, the plan promotes limited new construction in the park, with the emphasis on new open recreation space and improved landscaping. The new arcade will require the removal of several mature pear trees next to the Timken.

Even economically, the arcades don’t make sense. During last spring’s budgeting process, the City Council reduced the budget for the first phase of a park improvement plan from $50 million to $40 million. To make matters worse, $12 million of what’s left will now be diverted toward shoreline erosion repairs along Mission Bay.

Meanwhile, several park buildings need work, and the landscape, its most valuable asset, has not been formally catalogued or given the maintenance it has needed for years.

The new master plan and several detailed precise plans in the works for areas within the park--including the Prado--will mean nothing if private groups such as the Committee of 100 can impose their will in ways that aren’t in the best interest of the park’s future.

This Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., new ideas for the center of the park, including replacing the parking lot in front of the Museum of Art with a landscaped plaza, will be presented at public hearings in Room 103 of the Casa del Prado in Balboa Park. This could also be a chance to question city and park officials about the arcades.

. . . would nearly obscure Timken Gallery, at left in photo below.