In my many years of trawling the San Diego Freeway southward seeking ballet at the Segerstrom Center, a literal beacon of my destination-arrival has long been a happy sight: architect Cesar Pelli’s masterful Plaza Tower.
The master architect passed away July 19, 2019.
Located on Anton Blvd. south of South Coast Plaza it stands in addition to Pelli’s other works on the Segerstrom campus: the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Samueli Theater and the extension of South Coast Repertory. But it is this big metal-clad open-parenthesis of a building that is my favorite.
It stretches skyward from an essentially flat terrain in a tall, elegant “c” curve deflecting yellow Southern California light in all directions. Would that this building had a more poetic name! “Silver Sliver.” “Brave Boomerang.” “Sunlight Sequencer.” Not “Plaza Tower…”
More on Cesar Pelli’s relationship with the late Henry Segerstrom (who commissioned the architecture) and his marvelous buildings in Orange County here.
