When in 1924 the firm of Bakewell & Brown designed the new Pasadena City Hall in the form of an open “U” surrounding three sides of an open courtyard, they purposely left the fourth side unfinished, enclosing it only with a temporary arcade to provide for future expansion. This missing east wing was to house the council chambers. Since the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the City has been advised to complete the missing wing in order to stabilize the building. The design will be concerned with the continuity of architecture – respecting both the earlier design and the passage of time since its creation.

Conceptually, this design takes the notion of a wing, disintegrates it into smaller pieces, and allows them to be placed as objects in the frame of the courtyard. By doing this the courtyard gains symbolic quality as a gathering space, retains the order of axis and circulation, and makes a reference to the playful forms of Plaza Las Fuentes. Because of the existing courtyard’s limiting formality and symmetry, the project attempts to invite more activity from Euclid Ave and inject it into more usable areas of the courtyard.

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