Government Town

One of the great things about living in cities is the accidental discovery of design features that jump right out and say: "Surprise!" Above is a parking garage mural in California's Capital, tribute to your typical government bureaucrat. He's perfect. I stumbled onto this guy a few days ago, appropriately, during a lunch-hour walk while on jury duty. (Gun possession case. I served as an alternate jurror on a one-day case that produced a jury deadlock and mistrial).

 Our government man above was just the beginning.  Here below are more of my favorite things about decent architecture - murals that light up what's otherwise a blank wall. (These adorn a county government garage):

  

"That Woman Has Been Sitting There Forever."

Credit, and hail to the artist, John Pugh, of Los Gatos, California.

As long as we're on the subject of murals, here below is another I've often admired above a pawn shop on Sacramento's downtown J Street. It's not complicated, just a nice neighborly scene involving coffee and generations. (Note the cat in the right window). Artist is unknown.

Finally, below is a beach town take on the mural concept. This is in downtown Half Moon Bay, about 30 miles of San Francisco:

Close up

 The context 

Pacific Rim

I met Ted Lee, chairman of San Francisco-based Urban Land Co., about a year ago in Hong Kong. I was in the city for an International journalism convention and he was there to help promote better understanding across the Pacific - having lived through what happened between Japan and the U.S. in World War II.

  I was introduced to him as a real estate and land development reporter in Sacramento, where he happened to have developed and built a vital part of downtown Sacramento's redevelopment - the Chinatown Mall.  At the time it was called the Chinatown Renaissance Project.

   Lee told me about growing up in Stockton, a city about an hour south of Sacramento, and learning the fundamentals of real state and urban planning at Harvard and UC Berkeley. It was from Lee that I learned first that Asian governments had steered clear of Wall Street's subprime junk on the global market and thus, hadn't stumbled badly when those investments went to hell in 2008.

  A few weeks ago I walked through the Chinatown Mall on a lunch break and took the pictures that follow. The Mall is a distinctive part of the downtown Sacramento landscape - and gives the city a nice aura of being on the Pacific Rim when Europe is ailing and all signs in California and Asia point to the Pacific Century.

Public Square

The last pay phone in California (not working)

I Street Gate

I

I have the sense that Chinatown Mall is an older generation's idea of China. It contains a traditional Confucian school and a temple, and a statutory tribute to the founder of modern China, Sun Yat Sen.

Here's a similar memorial to Sun Yat Sen on the grounds of Hong Kong University.

Darth Vader

In almost 10 years of lunch-time trekking in the neighborhood of this downtown building in the background, I have never known quite how to feel about it. The locals do; they dubbed it "the Darth Vader Building" almost as soon as it opened in 1989 as the biggest focal point in the Sacramento skyline.
  Officially, it's named Renaissance Tower. I doubt one in 100 people in town know it by that name. I had a job interview once  on the 21st floor. The views were stunning. This building also reflects the sun beautifully and kaleidoscopically in the morning and evening sunlight. Yet it always manages to look a bit shabby and dirty as if the dark windows need perpetual cleaning.
  I'll salute the architects for trying something bold in glass, especially in a city that's fairly conservative with its design standards. But one always has the feeling here that if they could take it down, many locals would. One exception is a writer for The Sacramento Press who saluted its 20th anniversary in 2009. 

Interestingly, while Googling around for this item I discovered two more city towers nicknamed "The Darth Vader Building, in Seattle and Boston.

UPDATE 4/15/2011

 Since writing this post I've been paying more attention to this building, watching at different times of day for light and play of the sun. Here are a couple more shots of the Renaissance Tower known as Darth Vader. The first is around 1 p.m. and the second about 4:45 p.m. Thanks for the chance to revisit: