Wow, giant metal Christmas trees right across the street… Sweet. I guess.
So, um… why are there giant metal Christmas trees across the street? For the answer, let’s check out the listing:
Great location on 1 block long street right across from a nice quiet park and Watts Towers, (Tony Hawk designed skate park going in next year).
Wow, sounds… great.
Here we have a large, inexplicable installation with hardened walls that looks exactly as though someone built their own high-voltage power step-down station while on hallucinogens. As there do not seem to be any of those readily identifiable high-voltage lines nearby, this would obviously have been in anticipation of concentrated power transmission beams from either experimental satellite collectors – which can be notoriously difficult to aim – or extraterrestrials.
I do, however, admire the combined chutzpa and social ineptitude inherent in their attempt to pass this off as a “skate park” – which is, of course, about the only thing that could have had a worse effect on nearby property values.
Hey, look on the bright side. Set up a good camera system and take photos of the lightning when the storms roll in. Some of those photos can go for big bucks if you print n frame ’em!
Um, guys? I have some news for you. The Watts Towers are…
– on the US National Register of Historic Places
– a US National Historic Landmark
– a California Historical Landmark (#993)
– a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (#15)
Wikipedia describes them as “a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet. The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954.”
I first learned about them in architecture school. They’re in a folk art vernacular style similar to the works of famed architect Antoni Gaudí in Spain, especially the famed Sagrada Familia.
The house is small, but it seems very nicely kept up, even if bars on the all the windows are mandatory. Doesn’t say much for the neighborhood – not to mention the neighbors – but the place itself looks nice. No mention anywhere of when it was built, though the graph of it’s varying listing prices over the last few years (near the bottom of the page) is very interesting. Market Volatility much?
@Denita TwoDragons: Whether you think the towers are art or junk, you do have a good idea there, D. ;)
@Emerald63: I love Gaudi’s architecture! These did remind me a bit of the spires of the Sagrada Familia. Or a giant metal version of Venus’s Flower Basket sponges.
Thanks for the education! I had no idea.
I seem to recall stumbling upon somewhere further north in California where someone built an engaging little compound of structures out of mortared bottles, broken tiles, etc. over their lifetime, with a similar history: builder passed on, damaged by natural forces, and now under protection from exasperated neighbors…
Makes you think that we’re all, on some deep level, a bunch of demented magpies with an unstoppable, instinctive desire to stack up the most fantastical nest. :D
@anodean: You’re welcome. :)
What you’re describing is called “found art”, folk art created using whatever bits and pieces of other things people find lying around. The Watts Towers are like that, too, though more industrial looking, at least from a distance.
Don’t know if you remember but at that “other” (defunct) site, we saw pics of a house, I think in Mexico (or maybe Guatemala?) made entirely out of plastic soda bottles. I’d mentioned putting dirt/sand in some would provide good insulation, while leaving some empty would create a “window” effect. It’s not just art that’s created using found objects.
This!
http://www.vanace.com/BV/index.htm
Ah, the magic of the internet. :D
@anodean: Great find, anodean! I only wish this place looked just as dazzling from outside as it does from inside. But hey, that’s not true of buildings with stained glass, either. Perhaps if there are lights on inside it at night?
I love the deep blues and how the “amber” glass ends up looking like huge chunks of *real* amber when the light passes through it. It’s like a DIY version of the famed – and lost – Amber Room in Russia.