Innovation would enhance Aliso

Last Wednesday night I went down to our City Hall to see the Athens Group present their concepts for a new Aliso Canyon resort. Athens spokesman John Mansour correctly stated, “It’s a tall order to come up with something that does justice to the land.”

Mansour showed pictures of Greene and Greene’s Gamble House in Pasadena. The Gamble House is a beautiful example of Craftsman architecture, constructed in 1908. He suggested that this might be the building design direction for the their project. All well and good: Everyone loves the Gamble House, and this style of architecture would have a strong family resemblance to the nearby Montage.

The next night a design team that included my firm presented a similar concept review public meeting at the Fullerton City Hall to elicit public comments regarding a new project in Fullerton’s historic downtown. After the presentation (which did not include any architectural elevations at this early stage), the public made their suggestions to our team.

The first person who spoke made an eloquent plea: “Please don’t assume that because you’re building in the historic downtown that you have to design fake-old buildings.... Just give us really good architecture.”

We Lagunans should have given Mansour similar feedback.

When Ben Brown’s 1960s-era motel and other structures are finally dismantled and removed from the site, Aliso Canyon will be a clean slate, a blank canvas in an exquisitely beautiful setting. In coastal California’s recent architectural history, there have been examples of similar situations where bold architectural and site-planning concepts have created not just attractive and popular projects but iconic developments that set a new standard for design. Projects such as Sea Ranch on the Mendocino coast, Nepenthe and Post Ranch Inn on the Big Sur coast come to mind.

These contemporary, award-winning projects have combined design principles that are both environmentally sensitive to the land and aesthetically beautiful. Like all truly outstanding examples of architecture, they will stand the test of time. Rather than recreating Greene and Greene architecture of the past, how about innovative “green architecture” of the future? Laguna Beach was a trendsetter during the early years of the environmental movement, and here’s an opportunity to keep that legacy alive.

In the past decade, the two largest new projects in Laguna have been Craftsman-inspired: the Montage in South Laguna and the Pavilions Center in North Laguna. But our town also includes mid-century modern and 1960s contemporary homes by noteworthy architects, such as John Lautner, Lamont Langworthy and Chris Abel. It is the rich mixture of all of these styles that make our neighborhoods so visually interesting and desirable.

I would like to encourage the Athens Group to explore other architectural concepts for this unique and unquestionably scenic site, rather than limiting themselves to Craftsman. Let’s not become another Solvang, over-using one style of architecture to the point of predictability.

During Laguna’s vision process, there was strong interest from many citizens for the city to pursue a direction of environmentally conscious green development. Judging from the Athens Group’s past environmental awards, I would anticipate that they would welcome the chance to utilize their creativity. There will be very few opportunities for a truly innovative project of this scale in Laguna. If not now, when?

* Bob Borthwick is a landscape architect and vice president of the Laguna Beach Beautification Council.

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