San Diego, CA
From Borderlines to Blurred Boundaries: San Diego-Tijuana as the World Design Capital 2024
When drawing, lines are fundamental elements of composition. They delineate space, outline structures, and define boundaries. When it comes to maps and borders, the line acquires a particular meaning, as this “simple” graphic expression marks a powerful division between regions, setting the beginning or the end of a territory. This line has a profound meaning at the limit between Mexico and the United States, where it constantly blurs and questions the border. In these places, multiculturalism is a daily occurrence, with a continuous negotiation of boundaries present in all aspects of life. The dynamic of these borders involves design and the generation of a complex network of interactions and collaborations.
Rather than being divided into Tijuanenses on one side and San Diegans on the other, this particular region stands out as a community whose essence harmonizes with a deep legacy of cross-border collaboration, rather than being seen as cities separated by a line. As the first binational designation in the history of the World Design Capital (WDC) program, the Tijuana-San Diego region shares a common interest in addressing urban, social, and economic issues through design. Thus, via conferences, policy summits, and workshops, the region seeks to enhance the catalyzation of ideas through its designation.
The region’s connection is visible from its urban layout, which, seen on a map, shows the continuity of roads and bodies of water—such as the Tijuana River—, to architecture developed on both sides of the border. In addition, being the busiest border corridor in the world, some people who constantly move between these two cities live through a concept that we could aptly call a “third nation.” Geographic proximity and continuous interaction have resulted in a hybrid, collaborative, and binational culture, of which several facets stand out.
Several examples illustrate the collaborative spirit that has historically existed in the region, illustrating the concept of the third nation. One notable example is Friendship Park, a small stretch of shared land split by a single fence. Projects like “La Linea Borrosa” (The Blurred Line) also emphasize this ideal, showcasing how borders can serve to connect rather than divide. Many of these initiatives, along with numerous other instances of cross-border collaboration, are now integrated into the program’s venues or serve as references in its conferences, which we will discuss below.
The Salk Institute: A Collaboration Between Louis Kahn and Luis Barragán
A notable aspect of this project is its history of cooperation, particularly between Luis Barragán and Louis Kahn, marking one of the first modern examples of cross-border collaboration. In the 1960s, through letters and phone calls, the two architects established a communication that culminated in Kahn’s visit to Mexico and Barragán’s visit to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
During Barragán’s visit, the courtyard’s design was still evolving. Despite Kahn having proposed several ideas, none had been compelling until that point. It was during this visit that significant interactions were sparked between Salk, Kahn, and Barragán, particularly when considering the central space among the laboratories. This reflection had a profound impact on the project. Although each had always developed an architectural language of its own, subtle but significant points of connection can be perceived in the Salk Institute, particularly in the appreciation of pure forms and water, an element shared between the research center and Barragán’s work.
Explorations of the San Diego-Tijuana Region
One example of the region’s common vision is the research project “Temporary Paradise: A Look at the Special Landscape of the San Diego Region,” a report prepared in 1974 for the city of San Diego by Donald Appleyard and Kevin Lynch. This study promotes a unified approach for shared development and culture between San Diego and Tijuana. This work has been continued by Dr. Bruce Appleyard (son of Donald Appleyard), who reinforces the joint approach between the two cities. Therefore, one cannot discuss San Diego without mentioning Tijuana, and vice versa.
Exploring the cross-border relationship, the project analyzes and presents potential opportunities for developing the area while preserving the common natural landscape. It proposes a human-scale approach, aiming to slow and redirect urban development. This plan ranges from highways and improved transportation systems to pedestrian walkways and bike lanes, and even the construction of a binational airport on the border with Mexico, something that to some extent is already a reality with Tijuana’s international airport.
Cross-Border Exchange: Tijuana Cultural Center and Balboa Park
The establishment of cultural venues in the region is vital not just to enhance Tijuana’s and San Diego’s urban landscape, but also to serve as hubs for exchange and connectivity between Mexico and the United States. As part of the WDC agenda, the Tijuana Cultural Center (CECUT) hosted several events of the World Design Festival powered by Tijuana Design Week. This building, designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, not only symbolizes a fraction of the city’s identity but also serves as a cultural center, hosting a wide range of activities including exhibition halls, conferences, and a museum.
Similarly, Balboa Park reflects this spirit as the heart of recreation and community life in San Diego. This space is the largest urban park in the United States and is home to the San Diego Art Institute, and the Museum of Photographic Arts, among others. It also hosts a series of itinerant events that extend throughout the park. In both CECUT and Balboa Park, the theme of borders is recurrent and enriches the cultural life of both places.
To further strengthen this bond and advance the connection between the cities, the Exchange Pavilion will be installed in both Tijuana and San Diego. In Tijuana, it will be located at Plaza Independencia (near CECUT), while in San Diego, it will be situated at Plaza de Panama at Balboa Park. Reflecting the importance of the WDC to the region, the temporary installation will act as a bridge connecting people from diverse backgrounds, inspiring conversations, and fostering a sense of unity.
What’s Next in the World Design Capital (WDC) Program?
As a biannual designation, rather than a stand-alone event, the WDC program will continue to expand through other events such as the World Design Experience and the World Design Network of Cities Meeting. These activities will culminate in the Convocation Ceremony, a symbolic event marking the official “handover” of the WDC recognition from San Diego-Tijuana to the region of Frankfurt RheinMain (Germany), the next host city.
As this transition arrives, the WDC 2024 program celebrates the San Diego-Tijuana region, highlighting collective achievements across diverse design expressions and inspiring collaborative action to address community challenges. The goal is to equip both cities with new tools to apply design thoughtfully, achieving positive transformations in their context.
By Dave Rice
Is Measure A going to affect a significant number of properties? Is it going to affect affordable housing in any meaningful way? Come now, let’s not be dense – this hits a handful of rich people who can absolutely afford to drop $10K in the city coffers if they’re leaving a vacation home vacant on purpose – let’s say that’s their civic contribution that would be realized in other ways if they actually lived, worked, and shopped here full-time.
Or it hits STVR hosts, who can either factor the cost into their business model or give it up if margins are really that thin (maybe not everyone needs to fancy themselves an amateur hotelier). But let’s not kid ourselves and believe the kind of housing this will free up will be plentiful or affordable.
In the exceedingly rare instances where someone might be eligible for an exemption, will it be too hard to apply for? That’s something we can argue and refine but that’s the bathwater, or just the little bit of it that splashes out of the tub, not the baby. An argument that the whole proposal is DOA because military members are too stupid to file for an exemption is either dismissive of or telling tales out of school about what we really think of military intelligence.
Poor, poor grandma who needs a home near her doctor? If she’s really poor why does she have multiple houses, and if she’s not does this really affect her? I live in a neighborhood where “aren’t you afraid you’re going to get shot?” is the first thing outsiders ask me about where I’m from, and if Grandma has owned her mostly-unoccupied vacation house for any significant time I probably pay a lot more property tax than she does. You couldn’t trip over the limbo bar to gain my sympathy, it’s buried a few feet deep.
This is a tiny nod toward taxing the rich, but that’s all. It’s not significant or meaningful, it won’t do a lot, most of the housing stock in question even if returned to actual residents won’t make a dent in the astronomical cost of living in or anywhere near this city. But it’s a tiny step in the right direction – and watching how hysterical the moneyed class is about the rest of us asking for even the tiniest drop in the goddamned bucket we’re trying to fill without their help is telling.
Related
Skip to content
Contact Us
This is the first installment in a series of stories on the history of dining out in La Jolla, how it’s changed and how it continues to evolve.
It’s hard to imagine La Jolla without its restaurants, from the lines stretching down the block at The Taco Stand to the iconic views at George’s at the Cove.
But the way La Jollans eat and where has changed dramatically since the area’s founding in the 1800s.
In this first part of the new month-long series “Dining Out,” the La Jolla Light looks at local restaurants from the 1880s (when La Jolla was first developed and settled) to the early 1920s.
“La Jolla had very few people at that time,” according to local historian Carol Olten. “There weren’t a lot of restaurants, as far as we know.”
Olten said she gets information about La Jolla’s earliest days from the diaries of local pioneer Anson Mills.
“He kept track of where he went and what he did … but he did a lot of home cooking,” she said. “So when they went to a restaurant for dinner, it was a big occasion. It was something people mainly did on holidays or … a social occasion.”
One restaurant Mills would go to — believed to be one of the first in La Jolla — was Montezuma Cottage. Olten said it is believed to have opened in 1895 near the intersection of Prospect and Jenner streets.
Mills described the restaurant as a popular eating and gathering spot for locals and tourists, Olten said. He wrote an entry about a Thanksgiving dinner there with about 60 people.
Montezuma Cottage later became known as the Seaside Inn and Ocean View restaurant. It was torn down in 1931.
Culturally, eating at a restaurant was a more formal occasion at the time, Olten said.
“You didn’t go to a restaurant just to hang out with friends like you would today. It was purposeful then,” she said.
Around 1900, a restaurant known as the White Rabbit opened near the corner of Girard Avenue and Prospect Street. In addition to a rooftop garden, it featured a tea room, joining a national trend.
“Tea rooms went with the suffragette movement because in those days, [women] didn’t have a place to gather without an escort, so tea rooms started opening in hotels and women could go there and sit down and have a social tea or lunch,” Olten said. “La Jolla got in on the tail end of that thanks to [Green Dragon Colony founder] Anna Held and [La Jolla philanthropist] Ellen Browning Scripps.”
One of them, called The Cricket, opened in the early 1900s with white tablecloths. Olten said it was near what it is now Eddie V’s restaurant.
“It was originally part of the Green Dragon Colony … and was sold to a British woman named Daisy Mitchell,” she said. “It stayed a tea room for many years, and she kept a guest book that was decorated with reds and greens and had a medieval theme. So it was very British.”
Joining a trend toward more upscale dining, one of La Jolla’s “most well-established and well-known restaurants” opened in 1912 at 1227 Prospect St. The Brown Bear had “stylish, fashionable service and a menu to please the gods,” Olten said.
A house specialty was Welsh rabbit served in a silver chafing dish. The restaurant was in operation until 1941.
Several restaurants opened around 1915, about the same time as the Panama-California Exposition, a world’s fair-type event held in 1915-16 that brought 3.7 million people to San Diego.
One of La Jolla’s new restaurants, the Spindrift Inn, opened in 1916 and was considered a “last stop” out of town.
“Most restaurants at that time were located in the immediate Village area,” Olten said. “The one that was astray would have been the Spindrift Inn [in La Jolla Shores]. This was in the very early days of automobiles, so not very many people had cars, but those that did would … drive their cars and the last stop before you got out of town was Spindrift Inn.”
The Spindrift Inn later became The Marine Room, which still stands.
Olten said the restaurant was operated by the Hannay family for about 20 years. Their “rambunctious” fox terrier, Jiggs, would roam the dining room.
Another Expo-era restaurant was the Dining Car, which operated in an old trolley car parked near Goldfish Point. Dinner was $2 per person. It burned down on Halloween night in 1923.
Next installment: With new hotels being built in La Jolla in the 1920s came new hotel restaurants. But later, World War II would have an impact on La Jollans and San Diegans in general and on where and how they ate. ♦
-
Maine1 minute ago‘Malicious gossip’: Wife of Senate candidate Graham Platner responds to texting claims
-
Maryland6 minutes agoYour Voice Your Future | Town Hall
-
Michigan14 minutes agoFifth Third Bank to close 75 Michigan branches, including former Comerica locations
-
Massachusetts16 minutes agoWinners’ circle: Tracking every 2026 spring high school championship – The Boston Globe
-
Minnesota21 minutes agoMinnesota Medicaid crisis: Thousands of care providers cut off from funding after state revalidation deadline
-
Mississippi29 minutes agoMississippi LB Devontray Brewer committed to Stanford and broke down his decision
-
Missouri31 minutes agoKansas City, Missouri, police investigating Monday evening homicide near 12th, Askew
-
Montana37 minutes agoWeather Wise: A rare storm for Montana
