[Click to enlarge] De la Guerra Plaza rendering, view from De la Guerra St. | Credit score: Courtesy
The most recent plans for De la Guerra Plaza not too long ago achieved unanimous approval throughout an idea assessment with the Metropolis of Santa Barbara’s Historic Landmarks Fee (HLC), although the journey so far has been something however clean. After debates over the grass garden — which was nixed in favor of hardscape — the pavilion stage characteristic, and a number of other redesigns, the present plans resemble a basic European metropolis sq..
RRM Design Group’s proposal will increase all the plaza to create one even floor, and can embrace new landscaping, a bubbler water characteristic, and a Chumash mosaic. The redesign has been a very long time coming, however with so many previous efforts that failed for lack of public assist, lack of consensus on design, or pure catastrophe, will this be the one which lastly makes it by way of?
[Click to enlarge] De la Guerra Plaza rendering, view wanting north towards Metropolis Corridor from Storke Placita. | Credit score: Courtesy
Beginning of the Plaza
Within the early nineteenth century, José De la Guerra labored his method up by way of the ranks on the Presidio of Santa Barbara, ultimately turning into its commandant in 1827. As one of the crucial rich landowners of the time, De la Guerra owned 5 massive ranches and greater than a half-million acres throughout the state. However, based on a historic report written by Santa Barbara Belief for Historic Preservation Govt Director Anne Petersen, his household house, Casa De la Guerra, which he inbuilt 1828, was the “city seat” of his empire.
The plaza was initially the courtyard of the house, the place De la Guerra would host group occasions and multi-day marriage ceremony celebrations. In 1853, three years after Santa Barbara was established as a metropolis within the new state of California, De la Guerra’s son and newly appointed mayor, Francisco De la Guerra, formally declared the plaza as a metropolis public house.
In 1874, the primary Metropolis Corridor was constructed proper in the course of the plaza, together with a firehouse and three-cell metropolis jail, for a price of round $8,000. In her historic abstract, Petersen says the choice to construct the brand new metropolis corridor within the heart of the plaza was a “clear and maybe intentional subversion” of Santa Barbara’s Spanish roots. On the time, the plaza was generally known as “Metropolis Corridor Plaza.”
By the Twenties, Santa Barbara began to reconnect with its earlier roots, in a lot half because of the “father of architectural planning” within the metropolis, Bernhard Hoffmann, who led the efforts to revive Casa De la Guerra to its unique look. Together with the home, Hoffmann helped develop El Paseo right into a retail and workplace house that laid the blueprint to the town’s now ubiquitous Spanish Colonial Revival model. Hoffmann referred to as his imaginative and prescient a “Metropolis in Spain.”
Into the Trendy Age
Beginning in 1923, architects Roland Sauter and E. Keith Lockard began the restoration of De la Guerra Plaza with development of the present Metropolis Corridor constructing, abandoning the unique constructing and introducing the present configuration with a hoop of buildings round a central plaza, anchored by the brand new metropolis corridor on one aspect and freshly constructed Information-Press constructing on the opposite finish.
Whereas the general form of the plaza was set, the group spent the following few years disagreeing over what ought to go within the center. There have been loads of concepts — a water fountain, picnic benches, a efficiency stage, statues — however there was by no means a consensus, and whereas the arguments carried on, the plaza’s grass garden and driveway popped up as a short lived repair. In line with a 2008 historic report on the plaza: “A consensus couldn’t be reached as to an acceptable design for the sq. itself. Within the interim the open house was merely graded and planted with grass inside the present concrete curbing that surrounded the middle of the plaza.”
In 1925, the earthquake that ripped by way of the town took precedence over the plaza plans, as native efforts centered on rebuilding and recovering. The next years noticed the true emergence of the white plaster partitions and red-tile roof that got here to outline the town’s Spanish Revival model.
Over the following few many years, the plaza remained a lot in its present kind. There have been concepts for a recreation heart that had been deserted within the midst of World Conflict II; an deserted proposal for fallout shelters through the Chilly Conflict period of the Fifties; and a number of other plans to create a pedestrian-only house, although not one of the designs gained sufficient assist.
Time for a Change
In recent times, De la Guerra Plaza has hosted annual occasions equivalent to Fiesta’s El Mercado De la Guerra, together with different particular gatherings, live shows, and public rallies. It’s typically the positioning of selection for group protests, with audio system arrange on the garden and crowds gathered within the heart.
However as time handed, the town stored exploring a brand new period for the plaza. Over the previous century, an extended record of architects have tried to offer their very own imaginative and prescient to the plaza. Again in 1923, outstanding architect George Washington Smith put ahead his unique idea for a pedestrian-only plaza with hardscape and a central water fountain.
Comparable proposals adopted within the ’60s, ’80s and ’90s, and maybe the furthest the undertaking ever made it was after an in-depth historic analysis by architectural historians Tim Hazeltine and Pamela Put up in 2008. Following that report, the town started to take an actual stock on what needed to be preserved and what could possibly be eliminated or altered. The primary components — Metropolis Corridor, the Information-Press constructing and the Bothin Constructing — had been all to be preserved, as had been the historic Washingtonia palm and pepper bushes. The concrete curbs, asphalt paving, and garden may all be eliminated if obligatory.
These efforts fizzled in 2012 when the town redevelopment company was dissolved, however in 2019 the town began working towards the revitalization in earnest, forming a De la Guerra Plaza Revitalization Advisory Committee and dealing with RRM Design Group towards an idea that debuted at an HLC assembly in February 2021.
The 2021 plans included a “splash pad” water characteristic, kiosk, arcade, and a pedestrian-only hardscape that paid homage to Smith’s unique 1923 imaginative and prescient.
Debate Isn’t Over
The grass garden in De la Guerra Plaza dates again practically 100 years, when it took the place of the unique Metropolis Corridor that was changed and demolished. And though the format has been adjusted twice since then to make room for contemporary visitors, the grass turf part has all the time been a central characteristic.
However RRM’s new plans would increase the bottom stage to be even with the sidewalks and substitute the grass and pavement with stone walkways. The plans drew criticism from metropolis residents, and some commissioners who hoped to save lots of the garden. In April 2022, throughout a joint assembly between the plaza advisory committee and HLC, the town took its official place that the grass was not sustainable.
The town’s water conservation requirements and “inexperienced constructing” coverage required that new or renovated tasks be designed “with out using ornamental turf except authorized for leisure functions,” and the town mentioned it could value greater than $850,000 to pump recycled water from the closest major greater than 3,300 toes away. The advisory committee, metropolis administration, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, and Group Growth departments all agreed that the undertaking mustn’t embrace grass.
On August 2, the HLC unanimously voted to proceed with the undertaking, which is now a a lot easier design, with brick and sandstone walkways and a pavilion stage between the plaza and the car parking zone. The “splash pad” has additionally been changed with a Chumash mosaic with a “bubbler” water characteristic.
In the course of the assembly, there have been nonetheless echoes of the decades-long debate over the grass, with Commissioner Cass Ensberg urging the undertaking planners to contemplate exploring a method to preserve the garden. “Simply give it some thought,” she mentioned, “as a result of as soon as we go right here, we are able to’t simply return.”
Whereas the undertaking is transferring ahead, it nonetheless must undergo formal planning and assessment for design approval.
