We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
Shakespeare/Tempest
The theme for this design is time because, obviously, the building has a clock, or several clocks.
The site, in fact, has a clock standing at the corner of the plaza. Last I checked, it didn’t work. The Central Hotel has since been demolished, over a year ago. A mixed-use project is planned, but it has been put on hold and the plot remains vacant, waiting.
See Centering a Town: 6th. Effort/Suspension for another variation of this theme. Again, the desire is to complement the St. Johns Bridge, the defining landmark for St. Johns, with analogous construction. Two piers are bent around the building to support a narrow band and the grid that contains the upper floors.
From the rear of the upper floors there will be an excellent view of the bridge, only a block away.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Donato Bramante, Palazzo Caprini (Palazzo di Raffaello), c. 1510
These buildings are in a class of their own and represent a climax of the High Renaissance palace between 1515 and 1520. Their functional differentiation of a rusticated ground-floor and smooth piano nobile, their majestic sequence of double half-columns, their use of few great forms, and their economy of detail, the organic separation of one member from another (e.g. balconies and bases of columns), the compact filling of the wall and the energetic projection of mass—all this, though unprecedented in ancient as well as modern times, gave these places the stamp of truly imperial grandeur. They had something of the serene and grave quality of ancient Roman buildings, and it was palazzo type that, fused with Venetian elements first by Sanmicheli (Palazzo Pompeii, Verona) and then by Palladio, was constantly imitated and varied all over Europe by architects with a classical bias.
Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, on buildings influenced by Bramante palazzos.
The style of palazzos—Italian palaces for nobles and the wealthy—may seem an odd choice for this project. They housed, however, several functions, and the ground floor was often used for commerce. Later revivals of the style served all manner of purposes. What the style succeeds in doing is defining an urban presence, assertive, conscious of itself, yet also mindful of the need to respect a town’s grid and fabric. The palazzo faces the town streets and lies close, maintaining its reserve without withdrawing to isolation and exclusivity, at least in appearance.
That was my interest, a unified design for a building with many functions, one that distinguishes the building and elevates the importance of the activities inside yet still fits in. Its location—in the center of the downtown area, before the plaza it commands—calls for such presence. I also wanted a design that might reach back into the past and give it present relevance and connection.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
T. S. Eliot/Burnt Norton/Four Quartets
All that is constant about the California of my childhood is the rate at which it disappears.
Didion/Notes from a Native Daughter/ Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Architecture built today necessarily, inevitably, is focused on the present, using current materials and technologies, and contemporary idioms and styles and trends. Much is simple and merely functional, bowing to the economic demands of costs of land, material, and labor, to the desire to maximize profits in a world that has lost touch with its base.
I like complexity and contradiction in architecture.
Robert Venturi
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This effort was influenced by Peter Eisenman’s House II:
of which I have made a model that can be found here, with discussion.
In both we start with a regular cubic grid, then submit it to a series of shifts and other adjustments. My design is much quieter, however, and where Eisenman rethinks structure and form of the total space, inside to out, my changes are largely surface, on the exterior.
In this design I wanted to add a tower—the folly—to distinguish the building, giving it a point of focus and identifying its location and function as a center. I’ve gone out into the plaza, though I’ve also added to its space. The extra area isolates and thus highlights the tower, though I’m skeptical the space would be used and can think of several reasons why it might not be a good idea.
I had two designs in mind, the Urbino Ideal City:
and Bernard Tschumi’s folies for the Parc de la Villette, Paris:
Tschumi’s folies in the Parc de la Villette begin with a basic cube, 10.8 x 10.8 x 10.8 meters, itself divided into 27 equal cubes within, 3 to the third power. The cube in each folie undergoes various transformations—additions, subtractions, combinations—marginally related to its program, if at all, if it has one, sometimes subverting structural function within or leaving support stranded without.
Here R4, where the cube rests on gray columns, beneath which descend stairs in one direction, continuing in descent one path; through which passes another path perpendicular, bridged, gracefully curving. The two paths do not intersect and the folie serves no purpose whatsoever other than to mark this crossing. We want to believe this treatment gives the intersection meaning. Just as much, we realize we are at a loss for anything to say. Still, it holds our attention and perhaps makes us think about movement, about direction, about crossing, and about containment, but also non-intersection. It asks us to linger, it pushes us to move on. Any further discussion leaves us where we started, with questions.
