A Style is Born
A couple days ago we posted on the unveiling of the breathtakingly hideous “Fox Village” monstrosity. Since first looking at those images we have been racking our brains trying to come up with a useful designation of Architectural taxonomy to describe what looked like a train wreck of shapes, materials and themes.
And then it hit us: Downtown Brea Revival! The same jumble of visual chaos, but rather than lined up along a street, it’s been all smooshed together. The corner main entry was of course stolen:
Now the Fox Village purveyors have altered the ostensible “style” from banal Mediterranean to tawdry “modernish,” but of course the identical impulse to create an instant “village” and imbue it with a sense of authenticity, persists. And that’s Redevelopment for you.
That’s a shame that the architects have no vision of Fullerton. The shops and buildings should match the style that currently exists in the downtown area which means this complex should be 1920’s-1930’s to look like the Fox. I suppose they could take it to the turn of the last century or earlier as well and still make it look good. The current concept would look great in Irvine, not Fullerton.
You must be new here…
Sorry to disagree #1, but fake old is the absolute worst. We don’t want stuff “looking like” anything. What we really need is great visionary architecture. And we’ll never get it as long as the City is involved.
Also the current concept would not look good in irvine, or anywhere else, either. It’s just a frighful mess. And just in time for Halloween, too.
I don’t’ think you all will like anything that is designed. rather than bashing the design offer what it will take to make this land a good project for the city. Would you rather get a drug store on the property?
#4, I think you are missing the point. Design by committee is bound to be a failure, especially when a govt is involved.
What it will take to make this a good project for the city is to get the City out of it.
BTW, what’s wrong with a drug store? All those drones living in Dick Jones’ downtown boxes need to get cough medicine and prophylactics, too.
#4,
I agree, offer up a solution. Or is #2’s position to keep the area exactly as it is, an empty parking lot? #2’s vision isn’t clear in their post.
#3, if anything new is built, it should match or be similar to the existing architecture. Or should it look like the City Hall, Fullerton College library, Fullerton High School library, the PacBell building downtown, or what??? A big glass box? A concrete box? That’s what seems to keep popping up around OC. Look at the First American complex off the 55 in Santa Ana. It looks AWESOME. Just across MacArthur are a few glass and steel buildings that look like any other downtown office complex.
I could see doing something fresh and new near Cal State Fullerton, Amerige Heights, or anywhere along Orangethorpe, but not downtown in that prominent location.
Please see comment above.
I just love it when I’m told to offer something constructive to this mess. That’s like somehow making me complicit in this big steaming pile. If the City wants to fix the Fox, then they ought to get on with it. This other monstrosity is just a huge make work project for Zur Schmiede and his overstaffed Redevelopment office. NOBODY ever wanted this excrescence excpet for City staff who bamboozled the populace into thinking tjhat somehow one more monstrosity was needed in order to somehow make the Fox viable.
Why should new architecture “match” existing buildings? Says who? If you’re paying for new architecture why wouldn’t you want it to be “fresh and new” everywhere!
BTW1, The First American Complex? With those dopey little replicas of Monticello stuck on to a huge box? if was intended as a joke it is an awesome success. Ha. Hahahaha. Thanks for sharing!
BTW2, I can’t even drive by City Hall without wincing at that embarrassingly dated piece of civic banality with its chicken bone columns.
I’m so tired!
So I looked at all the pictures here. I was wondering, where exactly is the theater?
look at all those wonderful paseos!
The theater is at the center facing chapman on the 2nd floor at the top of the setps.
Wow. Really? I believe you but would have never guessed that. From this picture it looks like the theater is going to be on the high school.
I received this email from a Friend:
“I assumed this was a joke when I saw it on FFFF!
It looks like an M.C. Escher creation:
More bars, antique shops and throw in a few massage parlors