Watts Towers (art event)

Sam or Simon Rodia might have been considered by many as crazy but in an architectural sense he was a genius. With little schooling he used useful architectural forms to create his masterpieces, Watts Towers. These towers are erected on a triangular residential lot of land that Rodia bought in Watts. He had the opportunity to buy a lot of lanf for the smae price in Beverly Hills but he wanted to be where the people where.

He talked extensively about the hierarachy of classes and the difficulties of rising. He thought that the world was going in the wrong direction. His living standards were very frugal. He was consumed with building his towers with every spare moment that he had. He would work late into the night and then, not wanting to be late for work, would jump into his red car and turn on the sirens to get there on time. He was arrested on many occasions for doing this.

Today there is a Watts Tower Art Center which conducts classes and hosts a festival every year. The festival celebrates the diversity of the area. The sculpture is not a symbot of the spirit of the area. The sculpture is comprised of nine main towers. The tallest of the towers stands 99.5 feet tall. He refused to give a meaning to his sculpture. Therefore the Watts Towers are not a monument nor are they a public statement. This amazing pieve is very appropriate for sculpture meeting architecture.

Rodia had a good sense of forms meeting forms and flowing together. He also had a good sense of color relationships. The towers look to me like a child's playground. They are imaginative, almost a way of escaping from the real world of material object. He found broken pieces and placed them together to create a magnificent sculpture for everyone. No one owns it. Maybe that's what his meaning was, even though he didn't want to give one.