European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 3, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Saturday May 3, 1986 the stars and stripes o 1 by Page 17 Man made shelter Island foreground with us marinas restaurants and hotels contrasts vividly with the san Diego s Morton Plaza Complex across the Bay. Disneyland downtown freewheeling fantasy in san Diego by Paul Goldberger new York times t Here is a bit of Disneyland inside Ever shopping mall struggling to get out. In Morton Plaza in the Center of downtown Sandiego the struggle is Over Disneyland has burst through with a vengeance. Norton Plaza designed by the architect John Jerde Lor the Ernest Hahn inc. Development company is surely the most important shopping mall to be built in any american downtown Section since the Rouse company got the idea of putting together some boutiques and ethnic food vendors to create the Quincy Market in Boston. But Morton Plaza is not like the self consciously quaint Rouse marketplaces any More than it is like the sprawling malls of the suburbs. It is Best described As a conventional shopping mall on a stage set for an italian Hill town. The architecture is a mix of turrets and colonnades and terraces and towers All painted in tones of peach and Apricot and Rose and ochre. It is entered by a grand staircase from Broadway san Diego s main Street and the main Walkway through the Center of the Complex twists and turns to create constantly changing vistas. It is wildly exuberant a kind of Southern California fantasy of a european Street. It even has a kind of Central Tower an abstract version of the Cathedral in Siena to act As a focal Point on the main Plaza. But it is not just to Europe that Morton Plaza looks. There Are other kinds of stage sets Here too the upper level contains a Complex of movie Heaters that Are a conscious Knockoff of the streamlined Art to moderne Heaters of the 1930s, and the restaurants include a Takeoff on a 1950s diner. There will be a legitimate theater in the Complex and there is already a new museum of contemporary Art the san Diego Art Center. Ii is now in temporary storefront quarters but which will eventually be housed in an old movie Palace next door that is being integrated into Morton Plaza. Such is the freewheeling spirit of this place that the storefronts while conforming to standards set by the project s designers Are nonetheless much More expressive and energetic than their counterparts in other malls. One shop which Sells safari clothes seems to take the Disneyland sensibility literally. It has a facade and entry of Wood that is designed to look like a Jungle Structure within which tapes of the sounds of Jungles or Meadows play constantly enough to make anyone feel As if he had stumbled into Disneyland s safari ride. Morton Plaza is not without any similarity to conventional shopping centers. Its Basic elements Are still the same there Are three department stores at opposite ends of the Complex with smaller shops and restaurants in Between and parking is in garages that surround the perimeter. But Here unlike in most other malls it is the design of the Complex itself that has the real Impact. The architectural ideas behind Morton Plaza Are not entirely new but their use in a major downtown shopping mall is. In the re use of historical elements and Rich colors there Are hints of the work of Michael Graves in this design though heavily commercialized. And Morton Plaza evokes the architecture of Charles Moore the los Angeles architect whose work is particularly fantasy oriented and who 20 years ago startled his fellow professionals by writing favourably about Disneyland. In an essay in Perpecta an architectural Magazine published at Yale Moore celebrated Disneyland s make believe qualities and suggested that Disneyland was the one place in which Southern californians could partake of traditional pedestrian oriented Urban experiences. In a sense the willingness of a commercial Developer to take a Chance on a design like Morton Plaza indicates the extent to which these ideas have now become the common Wisdom that even in the commercial world the extent to which fantasy and whimsy Are important in an Urban environment is now beginning to be understood. All of that said Morton Plaza if far from perfect. As a work of Post modern architecture it is not a Little crude. It is a pastiche More than a fully realized design and its almost untamed spirit which is so energizing on a first visit May Well Pale Over time. How fresh All this fantasy architecture will look after five years is a real question. Moreover the Complex has one crucial flaw that it shares with virtually every other Urban mall in the world it is almost entirely inward looking. If Morton Plaza is the new heart of downtown san Diego it is a heart Cut off from its body for the Complex has almost no connection with the surrounding streets. Indeed while there is a formal pedestrian Entrance from Broadway san Diego s main business Street the Complex is mainly organized to be entered from the parking garages which surround two sides of it. From these sides they give it an appearance that is nearly As dreary As any other mall. Like so Many Urban malls it is in downtown but not completely of downtown. Still there can be no question that Morton Plaza has already begun to transform downtown san Diego until now a dreary collection of mediocre High Rise buildings saved Only by its waterfront setting. For san Diego where life for generations has been oriented almost entirely away from downtown the completion of Horton Plaza a few months ago constituted a major shift of focus. For the first time in years suburbanites went downtown to stroll As Well As to shop and the beginnings of some kind of Urban experience have been Felt. This City has desperately needed a town Square and now it has one. And it is probably the right kind of Square for a Southern California City. There is nothing in Horton Plaza to threaten the priorities of Southern California too strongly. It is a place where one can pretend to be in a City while still living a fundamentally suburban existence. The sad thing about Horton Plaza is not the place itself but the rest of the City around it. San Diego has begun to Wake up from a Long architectural slumber but there is a Long Way to go before this City s Center has anything More than the feeling of a Small Middle Western City that was somehow dropped onto a site beside the Pacific Ocean