Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 14, 2012

11

HOMES & PROPERTY

 Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 14, 2012 

One Of A Kind: Featuring unique homes and gardens and the people whoe create them Story and Photos By Chris Bertrand 


It is well known that Pasadena’s California 
Institute of Technology has been the 
hotbed of cutting edge technology for 
over eight decades. In homage to this Los 
Angeles Mecca for all things technological 
and scientific, it’s even been the thinly 
veiled backdrop for the popular television 
series, Numbers. 

As one drives down California or Del Mar or Hill, the buildings 
where some of the country’s brightest minds teach our current 
understanding of technology and expand the boundaries of physics, 
biology, engineering and more through research and testing, might 
just be a blur of edifices, classrooms and laboratories.

Recently retired Sierra Madre Police Chief, Marilyn Diaz, has 
added Caltech Architectural Tour Guide to her long list of post-
retirement activities. In addition to her expanded role in Sierra 
Madre’s Rotary Club, mentoring of women students at Pasadena 
Community College, a bit of world travel, and several board and 
advisory positions, Diaz is now honing her skills as a tour guide to 
the Caltech’s architectural treasures. 

This reporter was delighted and honored to tag along on her 
first practice tour. In an hour, we took in only a small bite of the 
architectural pie at Caltech, scratching the surface of the hallowed 
halls of only seven buildings.

The buildings and surrounding campus that house all this 
brainpower are, in themselves, a wealth of purposeful symbolism, 
exemplary architecture and fine renderings of artisanal excellence. 

The original campus offers stunning “shaded portals, sheltering 
walls, and Persian pools” and many artistic embellishments to 
remind scientists and engineers to be cognizant of the aesthetic 
components of life and social conscience, in addition to their often 
single minded pursuit of pure science.

The result is an architectural treasure to be enjoyed by students, 
faculty and the community. Our tour passed a mother and child 
mesmerized by the field of frogs in a campus water feature, olive 
trees whose fruit is harvested, pressed and offered for sale in the 
school bookstore and a magnificent heritage oak held upright like 
Moses’ arms with immense metal supports.

An hour’s architectural tour can be like drinking from a firehose, 
with hundreds of examples of architectural concepts and practices 
like diaper design (a repeated pattern), terracotta grillwork, 
corbels, relief, Brutalism, Monastic arcades, peristyle of 32-tapered, 
diamond-shaped columns, or Italian baronial hall at every turn. It 
is clear however, that the concepts were incorporated to beautifully 
and thoughtfully honor scientific pursuit. 

Even if one doesn’t remember a single architectural term, taking the 
time to appreciate the density of architectural beauty within just a 
few blocks is well worthwhile.

Notable is the intentional humor incorporated, according to 
Caltech’s official guide notes, as an “essential part of the architecture, 
with gargoyles, column capitals and medallions depicting historical 
figures or student life” like athletic 
competition, music or theater, as 
well as symbols of the academic 
specialties like physics and 
chemistry.

Though the most visually familiar 
architectural view might be the 
repeated “monastic” arches where 
Numbers actors playing professors 
and crime solvers walked and 
discussed using science and math 
to decipher clues, perhaps the most 
famous Caltech building is the 
Athenaeum. 

Built in 1930, the style recalls an 
Italian villa in a Mediterranean 
eclectic or “California Style.” Typical 
of the detail and attention devoted 
to many areas of the campus, 
noted artist Giovanni Smeraldi, 
who trained at the Vatican, was 
commissioned to paint the entry 
hall and dining room ceilings.

 A private club designed as a meeting 
place for Caltech and its associated 
institutions like the nearby Jet 
Propulsion Lab, the Athenaeum 
offers dining, lounge, meeting and 
large event rooms and venues, as 
well as twenty four guest rooms 
and four suites to house honored 
guests the likes of Einstein (yes, 
that Einstein). 

The focal points of the dining room 
are the round center tables reserved 
for Nobel Laureates. Only a few 
weeks ago, Stephen Hawking joined 
the world’s most heralded minds for 
a meal there.

Student housing was an important 
element to the development of the 
campus. The South Student Houses 
are built in a Mediterranean style 
to house approximately 75 students 
each, with private courtyards in 
the middle. Typical of this style of 
architecture, many rooms open onto 
the center, intended to offer students 
many opportunities to bond together 
and share ideas.

The Winnett Student Center, located 
at the border between dormitories 
and academic buildings, was built 
in 1962 in a modern style. Its south 
wall incorporates initialed bricks 
from the 1920’s, sold for $1 to raise 
money for 1925, A-framed student 
center designed by Henry Greene, 
of the famed Greene and Greene 
architectural firm. Caltech promised 
donors to keep the bricks on the 
campus, and 90 years later, they are 
still proudly displayed. 

The 1928 Guggenheim Aeronautics building was built surrounding 
a large wind tunnel that spanned three stories and part of the 
building’s basement. Used for research and testing by aircraft 
manufacturers during World War II, it was later dismantled. 

Today, a two story lab with a glass viewing wall allows outsiders 
a peek into cutting edge science in process. The viewing area 
features ceiling artwork representing the jellyfish, long an enigma 
in propulsion. The Guggenheim was the site of much early 
rocketry experimentation, which led to the establishment of the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory, just a few miles away. 

Throop Hall, built in 1910 to house the entire initial school, was 
demolished after damage in a 1971 quake. Sculptures by sculptor 
luminary, Alexander Calder, were preserved and reinstalled on 
another area of the campus.

Mayan themes and motifs adorn the 1929 Dabney Hall of 
Humanities, to honor Goodhue’s interest in southwest pueblo 
design. The original blueprints called for extensive tile work, but 
Caltech felt it too ambitious. Years later, some of this tile work was 
in fact added to the north face of the building. Of note inside are 
spectacular water fountains with faience tile surrounds.

The building’s traditional yet stunning library filled with bound 
theses stacked from floor to ceiling, fills one with wonder at all the 
breaking ground ideas put to paper right in this room.

The Millikan building, initially built as a library in 1967, seems 
an antithesis to its Mediterranean surroundings. A rather stark 
modernistic design built up instead of sprawling to conserve green 
space, the practical usage of the building as a library has become 
untenable, and recently administration offices have moved to the 
building. Libraries were moved to the site of the individual scientific 
specialties. The protruding area at the nine-story building’s base, 
surrounded by a water-filled moat, now houses the Caltech board 
room.

Rich symbolism is everywhere on the campus. The Linde Robinson 
Center for Global Environmental Sciences, now in a 1932 renovated 
building, includes hallway light fixtures incorporating stars and 
models of Saturn. Light fixtures on either side of the entry are 
models of observatories. Their purple glass is caused by sunlight 
reacting with the manganese dioxide added to the sand when the 
glass was made.

Over and over, the minutest features of scientific pursuit, or the 
tools by which it is studied are mimicked, emulated or used as a 
subject of humor, providing a provocative reason to slow down and 
see the details of one’s surroundings.

Caltech Architectural tours are offered to the public as a special 
service of the Caltech Women’s Club, on the fourth Thursday of 
each month except July and August. Group tours are also available. 
Tours are moderately strenuous, and include stairs. Call Susan Gray 
at 626-395-6328 for reservations. More information about Caltech 
tours is available at: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~archtour/site/
Welcome.html. 

For further reading on Caltech architecture, Caltech’s Architectural 
Heritage: From Spanish Tile to Modern Stone by Romy Wyllie is 
available at the Caltech bookstore. 

Data for this article was obtained from Caltech sources. 


ARCHITECTURAL TOURS AT PASADENA’S CALTECH


Retired SM Police Chief Marilyn Diaz

Cal Tech’s famous arches above; Each pillar (below) represents a scientific pursuit.


DEFINITELY

MAYBE

Although less than ideal, sellers are seeing 
more “contingency” contracts, wherein the 
buyers make their offer contingent upon being 
able to sell their own home first to complete 
the purchase. If the buyers aren’t successful, 
their Offer To Purchase becomes null and void, 
potentially leaving the sellers at Square One. 

A compromise has developed, called a “kick-
out clause,” which is wording included in the 
contract that allows the sellers to continue 
marketing their home, even while under 
contract. If the sellers receive another offer, the 
buyers are granted a “kick-out” period - usually 
72 hours - to respond by removing their sell-
first contingency or by securing financing and 
completing the purchase. 

Unfortunately, the chances are that most 
buyers who must sell first likely won’t qualify for 
another loan on the new property. If the buyers 
fail on both counts - selling and financing - then 
the sellers have the right to accept another offer 
from qualified buyers. 

While this might seem to put the buyers at a 
disadvantage, the sellers must have some sort 
of protection against an offer that could tie up 
their listing indefinitely and perhaps never be 
consummated. 

Consider including language in the contract 
that also requires the buyers to begin aggressively 
marketing their own home within a specified 
period. If the buyers don’t leap to action, the 
contract can be voided.

Luther Tsinoglou has just been named the top 
producing sales agent in Dickson Podley Realtor’s 
Sierra Madre office for 2009, making the top 10% 
at the company overall. Luther has been licensed 
and practicing real estate since 1992. He specializes 
in residential and income property in Southern 
California. Luther can be reached at his direct line 
(626) 695-8650 or at luther@tsinoglou.com.