Back then, it was the haircut of Flock of Seagulls’ frontman as a mall—angular, wild to look at, confusing to old people. It was even perplexing to young people, who loved every single thing about malls. It was a real-life recreation of M.C. Escher’s painting, Relativity, with stairs that went everywhere and nowhere. Trying to escape the Horton Plaza parking garage was a form of trauma unique to San Diego, a rite of passage. Go ahead, take this ayahuasca and try to remember if you parked on avocado or watermelon.
Before Amazon turned capitalism into a lonely pocket kiosk, all things were bought in a teeming social arena—in malls. And there was no mall like Horton Plaza. As it now sits in holdership, awaiting someone to love it or use it for parts, it is due a proper salute. For a brief moment in time, it put San Diego—long considered California’s affable, unserious, uncultured vacation spot with a ceremonial heart and design agnosticism—at the international center of cutting-edge pop art, design, architecture, and commerce.
Why? Because between writing sci-fi novels about book burners and vagrants with tattoos that predicted our dystopian downfall, Ray Bradbury took time to build a mall in San Diego…