Saturday, September 12, 2015

More Construction On Pasadena Campus


This panorama shot is of the new condo complex being constructed
on the site of the old Fine Arts Hall.

The building in the background is where the Science Hall, parking lot and Mediterranean Garden fountains were behind Terrace Villa.

Ambassador Hall is currently being marketed as a private home for $9.5 million.

9 comments:

Minimalist said...

Wake up Sheeple in the CoGlets, this is the ultimate fate of the money you give to glib-tongued grease-haired gray-templed millionaire charismatic Elmer Gantry Pied-Piper huckster Charatans who will eventually cash in accumulated assets to Real Estate moguls and go on First-Class cruises with their Trophy-Wives and Spoiled Children.

Anonymous said...

I think that the beautiful Hewlett mansion is going to look so small and out of place surrounded by the modern condos.

Anonymous said...

The day that the last building is torn down will be a symbolic day of rejoicing for all of us that have been abused by this evil organization. Nothing that Armstrong built or that was part of his evil organization should be salvaged just as none of the splinter groups are worth being salvaged (UCG,LCG,RCG,PCG ect..)

Byker Bob said...

I think the plight of the remaining mansions is probably the reasoning behind Heretage Square Museum, which is a relatively short distance away from Ambassador College. And, of course, San Francisco took an entirely different approach to preserving the original architecture of entire historically significant neighborhoods. It is difficult to separate old mansions from their original surroundings, especially when hills are involved. They were designed to be functional within their original environment, and densities.

In a way, the mansions were always an anomaly for the neighborhood. That long and deep block was flanked by apartments on two sides, a slum on one side, and a fairly opulent neighborhood working towards the Arroyo. As such, there would be many challenges in preserving the original flavor. While I like modern architecture, I believe HWA introduced a garish contrast with the multi-million dollar honeycomb buildings smack dab next to a famous old mansion. Talk about a fashion faux pas! Despite all of the hype of the day, I always thought that was the sort of thing that not even Jed Clampett would have done in Beverly Hills. The so-called lower campus was not such an assault on the eyes, because there was not mixed architecture, all if the buildings were modern.

But, this is what you get when the organization controlling a large portion of land believes that an apocalypse is going to soon wipe it all away. After 1975, this became a perennially renewable 3-5 years, as opposed to being a fixed date event. Either way, preserving historic significance was the last thing on their minds. Some fools speculated that it would be preserved by the Germans who would think it too beautiful to destroy, but if even a mid-range nuke were to hit the Los Angeles area ("they" prophesied that all our major cities would be bombed), it would have been reduced to rubble, anyway.


Beautiful place, at one time. The horribly ugly things that were taught there defeated the beauty. The Ambassador experience was not unlike an indentured servant being forced to eat spinach and liver at the Taj Mahal.

BB

Anonymous said...

Fast forward anywhere from 10 to 30 years and we'll be reading about the new owners of the buildings in Edmond and Wadsworth. Even enablers can only stand so much abuse.

Anonymous said...

Maybe ISIS will get to Flurry's Auditorium and "renovate" it.

Anonymous said...

To further emulate Mr. HWA, shouldn't Mr. Flurry tear down a pro rated amount of houses and buildings in Edmond???

Retired Prof said...

Anon Sept 13, 6:25 AM says, "Nothing that Armstrong built or that was part of his evil organization should be salvaged. . . ."

On an emotional level, this sentiment is understandable. In evolutionary terms, people who belonged to groups that burned the shelters that someone had died in tended to avoid contagion and live longer than those who stayed put. That seems to be how we inherited the desire to destroy concrete objects associated with fear and disgust. Sometimes, however, this irrational impulse leads us to destroy things of real value, the destruction of which will in no wise reduce the threat of contamination.

Examples: ISIS destroys statues and manuscripts in Mosul; the Nazis conduct a giant book burning in 1933; several American cities, hold "gun buybacks" and destroy the artifacts with cutting torches; in my county a man whose daughter had fatally crashed into a large oak cuts the tree down; zealots in Baghdad, with the enthusiastic assistance of U.S. military personnel and materiel, pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein, an example of 20th century Mesopotamian art.

Let me reiterate that your impulse is entirely natural. Let me further state that we often find it good to resist our natural impulses. Since those buildings cannot of themselves transmit the Armstrongism virus, their destruction will not decontaminate the area. Whether they should be razed or not depends entirely on whether or not they can be of use in the future, not on the harm that was perpetrated in them in the past.

A single example: my wife and I sleep in an excellent bed, the one in which her mother died. It has done us no harm because it is incapable of transmitting to us the affliction that caused her death: old age. We are suffering from that curse simply as a result of outliving her by so many years.

Glenn said...

When is the Hall of Admin coming down?