THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE

摘要

Orange County is a featureless suburban wasteland that occupies much of the arid plain between Los Angeles and San Diego. Everything there is themed, from Disneyland to the meanest mall, and developers have fought, with striking success, to make this an architecture-free zone. And yet, as everywhere in southern California, surprises lurk, and one of the more remarkable is a Modernist oasis in Garden Grove, an hour's drive south of LA. Evangelist Robert H. Schuller launched his ministry in a drive-in theatre, but his architectural ambition matched that of a Renaissance Pope. In 1962 he turned to Richard Neutra to create a structurally daring church that opened down one side, and Neutra later added the 15-storey Tower of Hope. In 1980, he commissioned Philip Johnson and John Burgee to design the Crystal Cathedral (AR January 1981), a soaring, star-shaped glass shed, with a roll-away wall that unites the congregation of walk-in and drive-up parishioners. Johnson returned in 1990 to do a shiny, shard-like campanile.