SIMON'S ENTRYWAY

Who was Simon Rodia?
  • Simon was born in a smalltown in Southern Italy in 1879 and sailed from Naples to America as a young teenager.
  • It was the first time Simon viewed constructions using glass and steel.
  • In early 1920, Simon Rodia settled on a wedge shaped plot of land in an area of Los Angeles known as Watts.

 
He lived @ 1765 East 107th Street in Watts

  • From 1921 until 1954 he worked on the Towers with no drawing board designs, scaffolding, bolts or welding.
  • "...I want to do something BIG, BIG, BIG..."
  • He would ultimately complete the largest single work of art ever created by one man using a tile-setter's simple tools!

     

 
Front Entryway

  • He worked a full time job as a tile-setter and mason. Malibu Tile Company in Santa Monica, Caifornia was one of his employers.
  • A few weeks before the Watts Riots of 1965, Simon Rodia died.
  • In all the devastation and violence of that time and in that space, the Towers of Simon Rodia were left untouched.

     

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