In 1924, Myron Hunt and H.C Chambers were one of ten architectural firms to submit a design for the Pasadena Public Library. Their Spanish Renaissance structure, with its elegantly scaled entry and patio, was particularly pleasing to the judges, and it fit the tone of the developing Civic Center, so it won. Construction began in [...]
High in the foothills overlooking Glendale, with a design inspired by the East Indian Pavilion of the 1893 Chicago World Columbian Exposition, “El Miradoro” was completed as a home for railroader Leslie C. Brand in 1904. (Since you’re at the library anyway, chick out The Devil in the While City by Erik Larson, an excellent [...]
This library does not retain any of its original 1907 domed, classical-revival design, but it’s handsome 1930 Mediterranean Revival facade by original architect Norman Marsh faces El Centro Street, while a more modern facade dating from a 1982 addition by Howard Morgridge welcomes patrons to the Oxley Street entrance. With its well-kept lawns and towering [...]
Perhaps it is our particular mindset, but we have never been on the JPL campus without imagining it to be a James Bond set: the park-like grounds the seem so peaceful…until somebody in there presses the launch button, and then all hell breaks loose. That, of course, is absurd. The truth is that within the [...]
Mt. Wilson Observatory, founded in 1904 by the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) with astronomer George Ellery Hale, sits atop the 5,715-foot summit of Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains. Since the 1980s, when it decided to restrict deep-sky astronomy research to its Las Campañas Observatory in Chile, CIW now partners with the Mt. [...]
Okay, so it’s not actually in Pasadena, but since Oxy is just a few miles west in Eagle Rock, it might as well be. Many of its faculty live in Pasadena, its alums are all over town, and when students want fun on a Saturday night, they head for Old Town. One of Southern California’s [...]
This 80something-year-old institution is one of the world’s leading schools for product, graphic and transportation design, as well as fine art, advertising and illustration. It’s most famed for its automotive program, students of which have gone on to design such cars as the PT Cruiser and the Volkswagen Bug. But Art Center grads are responsible [...]
Originally called Pasadena Junior College, this exemplary school began in 1924 on the site of the original Pasadena High School, which later moved to East Pasadena. The alum roster is impressive indeed for a junior college, including teacher Jaime Escalante, author Octavia Butler, rock star Eddie Van Halen, filmmaker John Singleton (who took his first [...]
With a faculty and alumni population that includes 31 Nobel laureates, five Crafoord laureates and scientists who have discovered everything from anti-matter to the difference between the left brain and the right brain, Caltech is one of the smartest places in the world. But it’s not a particularly populous place: It’s home to just 967 [...]
A Christian graduate school with an evangelical bent, Fuller trains ministers, psychologists, therapists and philosophers. The central-Pasadena campus, which comprises lovely old homes and a few modern buildings, is the school’s headquarters, but there are many satellites, including in Colorado Springs, Seattle and Sacramento. The student body is remarkably diverse, coming from all over the [...]
