Mystery History -- Solved!

Scullery Captain wins with his 1:07 p.m. Tuesday guess "During the early days of the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, a professor explains contours and aerodynamics to a group of vehicle design students."

In the 1960 photo above, automobile design students enjoy a day in the sun as Art Center College of Design professor Strother "Mac" MacMinn leads a class.

Now called transportation design, this in one of many disciplines offered by Art Center. Some of the finest designers for the most prestigious automakers in the world are Art Center transportation design grads.


Art Center College of Design is one of the institutions that will open their doors for free on Friday, May 20, for ArtNight Pasadena. If you've never been to the Williamson Gallery at Art Center, get there on ArtNight!


Many thanks to Art Center College of Design.

Mystery History -- Solved!

This one was a little tricky, but I didn't think I'd stump everybody the way I did. There were plenty of interesting guesses, though.

In the photo above, a huge tent is perched at the top of a carved-out hillside in preparation for a celebration marking the start of construction of Art Center College of Design in 1974.

Here are two wider views that show the massiveness of the swath that was cut along the hillsides:




Art Center College of Design was founded in 1930 in Los Angeles, and the move to Pasadena 40-plus years later was a big, big deal.

Local dignitaries, special guests with household names and lots of Art Center students and faculty gathered to celebrate what would become one of Pasadena's finest institutions of higher learning.


Don Kubly was president of Art Center at the time and is shown here with a model of the campus featuring the building designed by architect Craig Ellwood (the female student isn't identified):



Here's an excerpt from his 1971 President's Report:

“We are not just moving from one building to another; we are creating a whole new climate for a design college that can influence, not just our own college community, but also the design thinking and attitudes of all those we serve outside of our community—the businesses, the industries, and the society itself.”

Here's Kubly (center) at the event, toasting the occasion with, from left, Pasadena Mayor Mortimer J. Matthews, architect Craig Ellwood, designer Charles Eames and board member Philip S. Fogg.


Here's Mayor Matthews's photo from the Hall of Mayors:


Excerpt from a Nov. 16, 1974, Pasadena Star-News article written by Gary Clark:

It couldn't quite be called a groundbreaking since giant earthmovers long since had carved a bench into the San Rafael Hills overlooking the Rose Bowl and Arroyo Seco.

So instead, guests clustered under a large white-and-yellow-striped tent to sip champagne, to see how the $7.6 million campus will look when completed and to hear about the accomplishments from members of the Art Center family. . .

. . .The campus, located near the top of Lida Street, is scheduled for completion in 1976. The panorama of Pasadena offers itself as a view, but unlike many large-scale developments, the Art Center gives something back in its design.

The most striking feature shown in the artists' renderings and models in the low, single-building structure which will house the entire center. The building will be set back away from the rim of the lot so that the steel and bronzed glass building will be partially hidden -– harmonizing with rather than dominating the landscape.

After all these years, what we now call the hillside campus is lush with sycamore trees, pines and other flora.




Art Center has a number of photos in the historic archives pages of their website.

There's also video of the event in the tent.


Many thanks to Art Center College of Design for use of the historic photos and video.

First-ever Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament

Today at the first-ever Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament at the Rose Bowl Stadium, we proved that we're a college town extraordinaire when teams from Art Center College of Design, Caltech, Fuller Theological Seminary, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College competed for the top prize in a series of goofball challenges.

In the photo above, PCC President Lisa Sugimoto presents a platter of burgers to the judges during the Cheeseburger Challenge.

During this challenge, teams of two from each college had to assemble a grill and prepare cheeseburgers to wow the palates of judges (seated left to right below) restaurateur Jack Huang, City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson and Honda Design Center Director Dave Marek.


Here's the Art Center team creatively assembling their grill.


And a member of the Fuller team faithfully biding her time while the meat marinades, a technique they prayed would get them high marks.


The judges may have needed some Alka Seltzer by the time this competition was over!



The team from Le Cordon Bleu won the challenge.

A fun little irony was that the food cooked in the Cheeseburger Challenge was for the judges; when noon rolled around and people got hungry, Robin's was there with cheeseburgers, hot dogs and lemonade to the save the day. (That's Fuller PR Director Fred Messick waving.)


But wait -- I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started with the National Anthem sung by a chorus made up of one member of each college team plus a referee.


John Rabe of KPCC Radio's "Off-Ramp" served as master of ceremonies.


During each challenge, teams racked up points, with some shaved off if necessary for penalties, and the team with the highest score at the end of the tournament won the grand prize.

In the Monster Croquet challenge, teams had to use a monster-size mallet to push a monster-size ball through monster-size wickets. Here's the Cordon Bleu team:


The Art Center team (with a Cordon Bleu interloper):


Then it was the Frisbee Toss. Teams had to catch Frisbees tossed from downfield in the time allotted. Here's PCC:


And Le Cordon Bleu:


For the meteor toss, each team was provided with a bag in which there were pieces of fabric and some duct tape. They had to create what they thought would be the perfect catching implement for a series of "meteors" that were lobbed at them. This may have been the most important challenge of all because each team was charged with saving the world from certain destruction!

The Pacific Oaks team had their strategy for assembly...


...and Art Center had theirs:


All of the teams were fearless against the hurtling meteors -- from tennis balls to potatoes -- hurled via slingshot by Eric Duyshart, the city's economic development manager:


Here's Caltech saving planet earth:



In the Blind Faith Challenge, each team had one blindfolded member who had to take a series of pennants from the field, guided only by the voices of teammates. Here's the PCC team:


Next it was the Giant Puzzle Race. In this competition, teams had to run to the far side of the field to get individual puzzle pieces color-coded for their specific colleges, then run back and assemble them.


Once the puzzles were assembled, they revealed a map of sorts showing the various college locations and then some.


The Art Center team couldn't help themselves -- after this competition was over they created a sculpture with the puzzle pieces!



Before I forget, each team had a station complete with a bench and a round throw. Here's the Pacific Oaks station, which they appropriately adorned with children's pinwheels:


And here's Jered Gold, Art Center's director of public relations and communications, on the college's iconic orange dot:


While I make you wait in suspense about which college took the grand prize, here's Tony Bondi, president of Le Cordon Bleu:


The teams also earned points for their uniforms. Art Center's uniforms were an homage to the college's founder, Edward "Tink" Adams.

And Caltech students donned Albert Einstein wigs, although they took them off during physical competitions.


Many people from the community stopped by to watch the action, including Phoebe and Larry Wilson:


And now, without further ado, the college with the highest number of points overall: Caltech!


Mayor Bill Bogaard presented the trophy to the team leader...


...then all of the teammates shared in the thrill of victory.

By the time everyone was leaving the stadium, the trophy was entrusted to Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau for safe-keeping.


Final team scores (along with their team colors), provided by Eric Duyshart:

Caltech 194
PCC 162
Fuller 160
Le Cordon Bleu 145
Art Center 143
Pacific Oaks 139

The entire event was shown live on the stadium's big screens. I'm told it was also recorded, so whenever I get a DVD I'll do some editing and run it on KPAS.



Gigantic kudos to Eric Duyshart, Ariel Penn and others in the Planning and Development Department who made this event happen, and thanks so much to all the colleges for participating!

Shop Locally, Pasadena!

The "Grow Your Community. Shop Pasadena" campaign is geared to residents, workers and visitors.

Now in its second year, the intention is to help everyone understand that local dollars spent locally keep people employed, pour money back into the local economy, and fund programs and services that improve the quality of life in this community.


The City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce partnered with The Agency at Art Center College of Design about a year ago to develop the campaign.

You may have seen some of the ads in magazines, at bus shelters and on websites.

Sales tax, business license fees and property taxes paid by businesses help pay for essential services such as police and fire protection, park maintenance, library services and much more, as well as supporting our public schools.


So this holiday season, whether you're shopping for a book or a BMW, think about the positive impact you'll have on your own community if you make that purchase locally!

Public Art is Everywhere

When new development or major expansions are undertaken for public facilities and privately owned commercial buildings (with a few exceptions here and there), the Pasadena Zoning Code requires that public art must be installed, valued at a minimum of one percent of the cost of the building permit.

The installation above is untitled, made of ceramic tile by Gifford Myers on the hillside campus of Art Center College of Design.

Here's one that may be familiar to many of you -- A bench and mosaic by Margaret Nielsen at Paseo Colorado.

Maybe not so familiar is this installation at Caltech: "Water Forms" by George Baker at the Millikan Library pond.

Pauline Kamiyama is our public art coordinator. Everything goes through the Arts & Culture Commission, which conducts a competition for each project, followed by the selection of an artist. Then the commission is responsible for approving a concept that serves as the basis for the public art project.