the desert of the unreal

Time to test my skills as an architectural critic...

I snapped this pic of the Tustin Marketplace a few weeks ago. It is a large sprawling shopping center that divides the cities of Irvine and Tustin. It is an Irvine Company property (practically everything round here is owned by the Irvine Company). It was recently redesigned in order to improve traffic flow. But it is still a waste of raw materials and a horrid eyesore.

My father-in-law, a civil engineer, worked on the construction of the "marketplace" during the late 1980s. He warned the architects about the impracticality of their design. But as architects usually do, they ignored the advice of the engineers in favor of their own idealist designs.

There at least two-hundred palm trees scattered throughout the parking lot, enough to make the place look like a giant porcupine from the sky. There used to be black rocks where the grass is now. Before it really looked like something from Death Valley. Now it just looks like the outlet stores on the way to Palm Springs (but with more Hummers in the parking lot).

The marketplace has everything you need (what you think you need) and everything you want (what you've been told to want by corporate advertisers). But I must confess, occasionally I indulge at the Coffee Bean, and I've been spotted in Barnes and Noble browsing for hours on end...