Seeing is believing
Changing the world one building at a time
By Joanna Beresford 07/24/2008
My daughter just slipped a scrap of notebook paper onto my desk that says she loves me so much and that no one can replace me. Then she’s transcribed some notable quotes that she encountered recently in a book, including this from Georgia O’Keeffe: “Nobody sees a flower — really it’s so small — we haven’t time — and to see takes time.”
I love taking the time to see.
I also love to do off-season traveling — visiting places that are hopping during part of the year, but slow to the point of lethargy during less popular months. During off-season you discover the hidden character of a destination, and the experience of discovery itself is titillating, like sneaking backstage after a show, or watching carnies break down the fairground.
So I drove to Tucson recently. Yech! you would think, Tucson in summertime? The desert in July? Are you crazy? That’s what most of my friends said. But, as a matter of fact, July is monsoon season in Tucson, and I found the weather, the landscape and the community to be absolutely delicious, and I never wanted to leave. Under turbulent skies, I explored historic landmarks, a ribbon of railroad tracks, old-world taquerias, all-night diners, jazz bars and dusty saloons. I also stumbled upon a lot of interesting architecture, in particular a new project called the Mercado District, just minutes from downtown.
For about 3,000 years the land where the Mercado District lies was farmland, fed by a tribal irrigation system. In the 18th century, Spanish colonists built a chapel, convent and presidio there. When the railroad arrived in the Southwest, crossing through the terrain that would be named Tucson, the town thrived. Traditional Hispanic urban planning included public plazas, shared courtyards, and centers for commerce. Homes featured pitched roofs, front porches, territorial design and lots of adobe.
But during mid-20th century efforts to modernize and improve the municipal landscape, many traditional neighborhoods were bulldozed. The Mercado District property was reduced to a landfill, and for years it must have been hard to see the acreage as any kind of home for anyone. Today, a new vision of this place is taking shape and is under construction.
The streets of the planned Mercado District extend along the ancient canal system. I admit that my mind often plays tricks on me and I’m prone to certain nostalgic or romantic ways of thinking, but I do believe that I caught a glimpse of the old world as I strolled through the narrow tree-lined streets. In a way, the neighborhood recaptures the beauty of the original farmland, the rugged Western city, the landscape and its many cultures and coherence of it all — in a really spiffy way, naturally, with all the upgrades.
And get this. The principal designer of Tucson’s Mercado District is Pasadena’s own Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists. Which just proves that no matter where you go, you’re never far from home. Their projects can be found all over the world — from Biloxi to Chicago to Moscow — and their work proliferates here in Pasadena.
In 1991, Elizabeth Moule and Stefanos Polyzoides, along with five other architects, developed an agenda for planning in California called the Ahwanee Principles. In 1993 the same group founded the national Congress for the New Urbanism, whose charter includes this statement: “We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.”
The senior associate at Moule & Polyzoides, David Thurman, explains the firm’s mission this way. “We’re looking at ways of changing the world, not just through architecture, but by doing what’s right, by designing hospitable, inhabitable, sustainable, beautiful, high-quality places for people to live.”
This week I’m going to visit the firm’s local projects and look for the ways they’ve changed our world. And I’m going to take time to really see them, the way Georgia O’Keeffe could really see the flowers.
Joanna Dehn Beresford is a former teacher, nanny, actress, rock star, farm girl, waitress and clerk. She can be reached at truewrite@yahoo.com.
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