The Wright Kind of City

We would we remiss if we did not mention at least once that Phoenix has a lot of public art (generally good public art, even) and a lot of unusual buildings. One local paper runs a column called Surreal Estate that profiles some of these unusual buildings. One article in particular about the Circles Records inspired us to go take a look. The picture we got of it isn’t that great (there’s a better one here) but the thing about the building is that there are hardly any straight lines. The front of the store (built as a car dealership in 1947) undulates along the street. It’s a CD store now. There selection isn’t super and we didn’t get anything, but mostly we went just to look at the building.
Maybe it’s because Frank Lloyd Wright had a summer home here. Maybe it’s something else. But the fact is there are a lot of striking buildings to be seen here. We’ve passed this one a few times and we always call it the Hanging Gardens building. Amazing!
Another place we’ve enjoyed is the Arizona Falls. When the canals around Phoenix were being built this outcrop was in the way, rather than blast it away, the designers just let the water flow over it. The falls became a gathering place for locals and picnics and dances were held beside the canal. Much later an early hydro-electric plant was built on the falls to catch some of that falling energy. The energy plant was eventually abandoned but recently it was renovated and now some of the water from the canal pours over the old gears of the energy plant and other streams of water arc out around a central plaza. There are several vantage points to look at the falls. The Salt River Project (the agency responsible for the canals in Phoenix) hails it as a fusion of art history and technology. That was our feeling too when we saw it.
There is also the Giant Baby. Not so much an interesting piece of architecture as just a giant painted-on-plywood baby. Why is it is a field in Goodyear? We don’t know. No one seems to know, but lots of people must wonder. It’s quite visible from I-10. This picture was taken as we drove past on our way to Quartzsite.
Coming back from Quartzsite we saw another strange thing from the road: snow! That’s right, snow visible from Phoenix. Of course, it was miles and miles away and almost a mile above us on the slopes of Four Peaks. Our little picture doesn’t quite do it justice so there’s another view here.