One of my favorite sights in Livermore is the aqua pool slide perched high and
dry on the roof of Valley Pool, on Railroad Avenue. It's a reminder to
passers-by of time spent splashing and swimming at the pool, an effective
promotion for Valley Pool's business and is one of the vernacular icons of
Livermore.

Even though I have memories of being in and out of the pool during the heat of
summer vacation, I decided to do a painting during the cold mid-winter.
My goal was to depict the street scene in the low, January sunlight, with bare
trees and distant ground fog. The stop signs at the Railroad and North K
Street intersection give a sense of scale to the building's size. The
telephone poles diminish in height and contrast against the sky, to suggest
their receding into the distance. As a contrast to the bleak mid-winter, the
pool slide is unexpected whimsy and playful color.

The painting titled "Valley Pool" is also a statement about California
Redevelopment Agencies, or what I refer to as "De-development Agencies".  My
ability to sit in a mid-block parking lot for this vista of Railroad Avenue
would not have been possible until the winter of 2008-9. This is when the City
of Livermore demolished the Lucky's Shopping Center. At the left edge of the
painting there is one of the remaining wall fragments, in the foreground are
piles of debris to be hauled away. By springtime, the site had been bladed
flat by bulldozers.

All of this activity was the result of Livermore's Redevelopment Agency. The
Agency was established in 1982 with the goal of removing blight. The City
could declare anyone's business or property blight and use Eminent Domain to
shut down their business and acquire their building or land.  Unsure about the
stability of ownership, demoralized with the prospect of losing their
investment of time and capital, businesses either left town or chose not to
maintain or refurbish their properties. Also, taxes that normally would have
gone for civic purposes, were set aside by the city, for the Redevelopment
Agencies to buy buildings and land. Anxious that the City appear successful
about their decisions, they would artificially stimulate business activity
with financial incentives.

With the recent demise of California Redevelopment Agencies and its overlay of
bureaucracy, there is a new found optimism that is the antithesis of blight.
 Ironically, this is the blight that Redevelopment Agencies had claimed that
only they could cure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3wXHjUyqLw

At L and First Streets, the Do-nut Wheel’s  ‘round the clock, ‘round the year offerings of coffee and donuts has made it one of the cherished, cultural icons of Livermore.  The fact that the donuts are served-up with robust helping of mid-century Googie-Style architecture makes them even sweeter.  

“Googie” is typically defined as unexpected shapes of buildings, exaggerated rooflines, plus unexpected building colors and construction materials. Googie was popularized during the Atomic Age following World War Two and was often used in the design of gas stations, coffee shops and motels. Resort areas such as Palm Springs, became concentrated pockets of this new, ebullient style of architecture.   

However the Do-nut Wheel didn’t always look this way because the original building was constructed before the War in  1941, by Purity Market. This grocery store chain offered the new style of shopping with self-service aisles, and a cashier at the check-out stand.   In response to the nascent suburban lifestyle and the use of cars, a private off-street parking lot was included for their patrons. Purity Market used the same architectural plans they had used for several other stores; the curved roofline and visible arch on street façade could be seen in their Lodi and Palo Alto stores.   

After World War Two, Livermore’s prosperity was, in large part, due to the establishment of the Radiation Laboratories which resulted in more  people, homes, and businesses. Larger grocery stores, such as the Safeway on First and M Street (now Dom’s Surplus) were built  to meet the demand and the older, smaller grocery building had to find new uses. In 1958, the Purity Market was redesigned by Hans Schiller (1917-1998) and was modernized into its current Googie form. The distinctive zig-zag roofline and aluminum-sash wall of windows were added. High on the façade on First Street, distinctive aqua-colored glass tiles were installed with the eaves and arch painted to match.

I have always delighted in the architecture of this building, as well as patronized the Do-nut Wheel and the Laundromat.  I decided to do a painting of the building in the late afternoon, when the sun is illuminating the west side of the building and the zig-zag eave casts its characteristic shadow. I also worked in the December when all of the leaves had fallen from the street trees, so the building wasn’t obscured. Sitting at the corner, right at the curb, it is easier to see the “butterfly” roof line. This style is created when the typical high peak of a roof is inverted to create a V shape, suggesting the wings of a butterfly.     

I titled my painting “Han Schiller’s Purity Market”, not only because he had transformed the Purity Market into the Googie landmark we see today, but also to call attention to Schiller’s story. Hans Schiller was a German architect who was assistant to another German architect, Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953).  In the face of growing anti-Semitism and the rise of Nazi power, the two Jewish architects left Germany in 1933.  Schiller went to Palestine and then in 1941 he came to California where he established an architectural practice in Marin County.  Meanwhile, Mendelsohn eventually came to San Francisco and taught at UC Berkeley.  Given the strong connections between Schiller, Mendelsohn, the University in Berkeley, and the Labs in Livermore, I wonder how Hans Schiller secured the remodeling job of this outdated grocery store in Livermore?

For more information and examples about Googie architecture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture”