Watts Towers
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Nuestro Pueblo, commonly called the Watts Towers, in the Watts district of Los Angeles, California, is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato ("Sam" or "Simon") Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954. The work is a superb example of non-traditional vernacular architecture. The Towers are located near (and visible from) the 103rd Street-Kenneth Hahn Station of the Metro Rail LACMTA Blue Line.
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[edit] Design and construction
The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel pipes and rods, wrapped with wire mesh, coated with mortar. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain, tile, and glass. They are decorated with found objects: bed frames, bottles, ceramic tiles, scrap metal and sea shells. Rodia called the towers Nuestro Pueblo, meaning "our town." Rodia built them with no special equipment or (so far as is known) predetermined design, working alone with hand tools and window-washer's equipment. Neighborhood children brought pieces of broken glass and pottery to Rodia in hopes they would be added to the project, but the majority of Rodia's material consisted of damaged pieces from the Malibu Pottery, where he worked for many years. Green glass includes recognizable soft drink bottles, some still bearing the logos of 7 Up, Squirt, Bubble-Up, and Canada Dry; blue glass appears to be from milk of magnesia bottles.
Rodia bent up much of the Towers' framework from scrap rebar, using nearby railroad tracks as a sort of makeshift vise.
Other items came from alongside the Pacific Electric Railway right of way between Watts and Wilmington. Rodia often walked the right of way all the way to Wilmington in search of material, a distance of nearly 20 miles (32 km).
Rodia reportedly did not get along with his neighbors, some of whom allowed their children to vandalize his work. Rumors that the towers were antennae for communicating with enemy Japanese forces, or contained buried treasure, caused suspicion and further vandalism.
In 1955, Rodia gave the property away and left, reportedly tired of the abuse he had received. He retired to Martinez, California, and never came back. He died a decade later.
[edit] After Rodia
The property changed hands, Rodia's shack inside the enclosure was burned down, and the city of Los Angeles condemned the structure and ordered it razed. An actor, Nicholas King, and a film editor, William Cartwright, visited the site in 1959, saw the neglect, and decided to buy the property for $3,000 in order to preserve it. When the city found out about the transfer, it decided to perform the demolition before the transfer went through. The towers had already become famous and there was opposition from around the world. King, Cartwright, and a curator of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, along with area architects, artists, and community activists formed the Committee for Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts. The Committee negotiated with the city to allow for an engineering test to establish the safety of the structures.
For the test, steel cable was attached to each tower and a crane was used to exert lateral force. The crane was unable to topple or even shift the towers, and the test was concluded when the crane experienced mechanical failure.
The committee preserved the towers independently until 1975, when it deeded the site to the City of Los Angeles, which deeded it to the State of California in 1978. It is now designated the Simon Rodia State Historical Park. It is operated by the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. The towers are one of nine folk art sites listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and one of only four National Historic Landmarks in Los Angeles.
The steel, concrete and glass folk art structures were undamaged during the Watts riots in 1965. However, the towers did suffer minor damage in the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. They were repaired and were reopened to the public in 2001.
The Watts Towers Arts Center is a community arts center that was opened in 1970.
[edit] References in Popular Culture
- The Watts Towers, and their creator Simon Rodia's friendship with a 10-year-old boy, are a major focus of Daniel and The Towers, a 1987 Made-for-TV movie.
- The Watts Towers play a significant role in the 1991 crime-thriller film Ricochet.
- In Solomania!: A Festival of one-man(woman) shows (2006), Roger Guenveur Smith's The Watts Towers Project relates to the audience his fascination of the Watts Towers as he attempts to discover his own personal mark as an artist.
- A recreation of the Watts Towers is depicted in the Rockstar Games video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, as a recognizable landmark in the fictional city of Los Santos, which is modeled on the City of Los Angeles.
- Charles Mingus' autobiography, Beneath the Underdog makes reference to the towers as a part of Mingus' upbringing. [1]
- Don DeLillo's novel Underworld refers to the towers.
- An episode of the HBO original series Six Feet Under features the towers, (series 3, episode 4, timecode 33.17).
- Colors features a car chase scene that ends when the Crips' car being chased crashes into one of the towers.
- The Towers were once used to film (or videotape) a brief location segment that appeared on the Donny & Marie variety show. In the segment, the Osmonds sang, then briefly described the Towers.
- The 1976 blaxploitation horror film Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde climaxes with the title villain confronted by police outside the towers. The police refuse to fire on him because he is standing in front of the mosaic walls surrounding the towers. He escapes inside the structure and climbs one of the towers until he is shot down by the police. The towers were even featured prominently in the poster art for the film.
[edit] See also
- Antoni Gaudí, a Catalan architect with a similar style, particularly La Sagrada Família in Barcelona.
- Qutub Minar, including a similarly-shaped ancient Indian tower.
- Baldasare Forestiere, another Italian immigrant in California born the same year as Rodia who built the Forestiere Underground Gardens.
- Hermit House, a unique residence located in Herzliya, Israel with intricate mosaics entirely constructed by one man over thirty years.
- Nitt Witt Ridge a house in Cambria, California constructed in a similar style.
[edit] External links
- I Build the Tower, a feature-length documentary film about Simon Rodia and the Watts Towers
- the Watts Towers Arts Center - images, history and admission
- www.wattstowers.org
- KCET Life & Times. History of the Towers
- Official State Park Website
- The website dedicated entirely to Sam Rodia's Watts Towers and their impact on international art
- Spherical panoramas of Rodia's work
- Most Everything That Ever Mentioned, Showed, Documented or Featured the Watts Towers
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- Satellite image from WikiMapia, Google Maps or Windows Live Local
- Street map from MapQuest or Google Maps
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image from TerraServer-USA
