Category: MCM

Mid-Century Modern

A Call to Action – Help Save Capitol Towers Historic District!

captowers_buttonWe need your help to save Capitol Towers Historic District. You can help by speaking up at public hearings and by writing letters opposing its demolition. Upcoming hearing dates and an easy-to-use online form are listed below.

Capitol Towers is an established mixed-use neighborhood in the heart of downtown Sacramento. Its award-winning design includes the interplay of high-rises, individual low-rise garden apartments, green spaces, recreational areas, and car-free bicycle and pedestrian areas. Even after over 50 years, the Capitol Towers neighborhood remains a highly successful model for a livable, walkable, densely populated, and public transit-oriented downtown community.

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Capitol Towers has been deemed a historic district by Federal and State law. The City of Sacramento’s Preservation Director and Preservation Commission have also determined it is a local landmark. At every hearing in 2014, experts unanimously voted in favor of its historical importance. However, these decisions are not enough to save it. That is why we need your help.

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Capital Decades 1960s at the Sacramento Library

Capital Decades 1960s
Capital Decades 1960s

On May 12th, 2015 at 6:30 pm. we are joining our friends at the Sacramento Public Library again this year for “Capital Decades: 1960s.” We’ll be teaming with James Scott for “The Best of Times, the Toughest of Times: Sacramento Life, Leisure and Reaction to that Damned War in Southeast Asia.”  Join us and reminisce or learn about our local history!

Capitol Towers Officially Declared Historic District!

photo by Justin Wood
photo by Justin Wood

Sacramento Modern (“SacMod”) is pleased to announce that Capitol Towers — a thriving park neighborhood and urban oasis near Capitol Mall — has been determined eligible to be on the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, the district is also listed in the California Register of Historic Resources.

SacMod continues to seek protections at the local level by requesting that the City of Sacramento include Capitol Towers on the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources. This pending decision temporarily prevents demolition permits from being granted for parcel numbers relating to the historic district until the matter is voted upon by the City of Sacramento Preservation Commission and City Council.

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Join SacMod for two 2014 AIACV Experience Architecture Week events!

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The Bateson Building is one of several buildings featured on the Drawing Safari, October 12, 2014. Photo © Rob Super

Sacramento Modern (SacMod)  will be teaming up with the Central Valley Chapter of American Institute of Architects (AIACV) for two great events this October: a Drawing Safari on October 12th and a film screening of “The Vision of Paulo Soleri: Prophet In The Desert” on October 13th!

What exactly is Experience Architecture Week? AIACV President Kris Barkley explains here and here.

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Capitol Towers Preservation Update!

Overlay of historic Capitol Towers master plan circa 1964 with Google satellite view circa 2014, by Dane Henas/SacMod

Due to the efforts of preservationists and neighbors, Capitol Towers is now subject to a full Environmental Impact Review (EIR). As of August 2014, we have also made progress with our assertion that the neighborhood is a historic resource.

Read more about Sac Mod’s response to the proposed project and our efforts to protect Capitol Towers and Garden Apartments, including our nomination of the neighborhood to the National Register of Historic Places.

Blast from the Past: El Mirador Hotel Brochure

From the collection of SacMod.org
From the collection of SacMod.org

Across from the State Capitol, this swanky mid-20th century modern hotel boasted 14 floors, three cocktail lounges, two swimming pools, fine dining at the Granada Room, and luxurious materials such as mahogany walls and Italian glass mosaic in the coffee shop. It was completed in 1957 and was built by contractor/developer Fred Kaiser with the help of structural engineer Gordon H. Klippel.

This glamorous site was home to the Sky Room, with sweeping views of the State Capitol and park. Politicians and lobbyists enjoyed “Moose Milk” — an extravagant lunch with an open bar on Thursdays — and then chased naked ladies down the hallways in the evenings. Patrons at the Lower Bar enjoyed underwater ballet performed by gorgeous women via a large glass wall to one of the swimming pools.

From the collection of SacMod.org
From the collection of SacMod.org

Nothing was too over-the-top during the good old days at the El Mirador! There was even music and dancing on the roof! The round-the-clock party did finally end in 1969; and the hotel was remodeled in the 70s. The hotel is now Park Place Senior Community.

Adaptive Re-Use of a Former Dairy Queen Building

picture courtesy of Wendy Weitzel, Davis Enterprise
picture courtesy of Wendy Weitzel, Davis Enterprise

It’s great to see Indigo Hammond + Playle Architects reusing the great wavy roofline and cinderblock from the old Dairy Queen on 5th Street in Davis for their new office space. Who doesn’t have fond memories of a dipped DQ cone? We’d like to see more adaptive re-use of midcentury architecture in our area! Thanks to Wendy Weitzel of the Davis Enterprise Comings & Goings column for her report below and the picture.

Office space for Indigo Hammond + Playle Architects will fill the longtime Dairy Queen location at 909 Fifth St .. [K]eeping the exterior lines of the building and adding on, creating an office space for its business. Contractors have cleaned out the interior and removed the front walls and windows.

Here’s the Dairy Queen in its dairy days:

Picture courtesy of LoopNet.com
Picture courtesy of LoopNet.com

Food Circus

Food Circus ephemera, AtomicPear/Sacramento Modern

Hello from Arden Fair Mall’s Food Circus, circa 1960s! — where you can “Eat like an elephant for peanuts”! Designed by Dreyfuss & Blackford Architects for the Kassis Brothers, this area featured restaurants such as: Arden Fair Bake Shop, Bar-B-Que Chicken, Cork & Bottle Liquor Store, Country Candies, Carnation Ice Cream Bar, die Rheinlander, Frank’s Fisherman’s Wharf, Food Circus Card & Gift Shop, Frank Fat’s Chinese Food, Frank’s Chicken Ranch, Hof Bauer, Health Bar, Hot Dog On A Stick, Jumbo’s Coffee Shop, La Plaza Mexican Kitchen, Pagluica’s Italian Kitchen, Stop-N-Shop Market, The Steak Pit, The Nut Shop, Tastee Donut Parlor, and Ye Old Pastry Shop.

Duck, Cover, and Scramble!

Bert Duck and CoverHey kids! Get ready for a blast from the past! Tuesday, May 13, 6 p.m. “Duck, Cover, and Scramble: Sacramento, the 1950s and the Cold War” at the Central Sacramento Public Library Galleria!

Fallout shelters, the specter of Sputnik, and learning to embrace the atom are just a few of the topics to be discussed by Gretchen Steinberg of SacMod (Sacramento Modern) and James Scott of Sacramento Public Library.

More here: http://www.saclibrary.org/home/events/?eventId=109457

Capital Decades - 50's