Arts Plaza Architect Ignored the Users

* Re: Arts Plaza Is Experts’ Choice if Not Residents’, March 10.

The architect may look at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza as his “art,” but architecture must be functional.

Bare blocks of concrete may be beautiful art to some who don’t have to look at it every day, but it gets a little old. That fiasco that a poet friend of ours calls “The Rusty Radiator” was a very poor attempt to give a bare wall some character.

The reviewer from Architectural Review recognizes that the building “is a bit difficult to navigate.” What kind of architect forces people to use two different crowded elevators to get from the only usable parking to the only open entrance to the Forum Theatre? Why is there no short-term customer parking near the box office, nor any shelter whatsoever for the customer?

The USC architectural professor is exactly right, architect Anton “Predock is an object maker. People are not an important part of his work.” By all standards he is not a true architect. Architecture must be for people. Certainly people are what this project was intended for, but it is a dismal failure.

MICHAEL PERSHING

Thousand Oaks