Looking for an Iconic Answer: The Oceanside High School Performing Arts Center

Looking for an Iconic Answer:

The Oceanside High School Performing Arts Center

by Larry Gordon
cover
Winning entry by Harley Devereaux

Oceanside High School has a location that many other big public campuses may envy. The 2,500-student school is an easy walk to some of California’s most beautiful beaches and also is close to the big open spaces of the U.S. Marines’ Camp Pendleton base along the Pacific coast. What’s more, the campus is just to the west of the Interstate 5, the main freeway route that puts downtown San Diego only about 40 minutes away.

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Creating Spaces: A Multi-Layered Approach to a Complex Program The Kaohsiung Maritime Cultural & Music Center, Taiwan by Stanley Collyer

Creating Spaces: A Multi-Layered Approach to a Complex Program

The Kaohsiung Maritime Cultural & Music Center, Taiwan

by Stanley Collyer

front page

Once the destination of large passenger liners and freighters, ports such as Manhattan and San Francisco are now more likely to be the site of entirely different activities. Cities have discovered that waterfronts lend themselves to all kinds of recreational activities: instead of large ships, we may now find tennis courts, museums and restaurants located on those once abandoned piers. The conversion of waterfronts to other uses is hardly limited to North America. In the run-up to the 1984 Barcelona Olympic Games, Oriel Bohigas was asked to devise a plan, which included the redesign of the Barcelona waterfront. It turned out to be an attractive destination for locals and tourists alike and may have represented a subliminal moment in the minds of the Spanish architects who recently won the recent Kaohsiung Maritime Cultural & Popular Music Center International Competition in Taiwan. Recognizing the potential of this post-industrial site, the Kaohsiung authorities chose to stage a competition as a vehicle to facilitate the transformation process — with the stated intention of injecting new energy into an outdated waterfront location.

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