The last of my I don’t usually do….. series. As I sit through a 3 hour delay at the PHX (Phoenix, AZ) Airport, I have time to reflect on what I saw here, mostly from the window of a speeding rental car, and mostly in Scottsdale and the freeway between the airport and Scottsdale. The urban art blends beautifully with the thoughtfully engineered interchanges. There is art in unexpected places, like under overpasses- huge lizzards of colored stone, regional icon and animal patterns in poured concrete on retaining and sound-break walls. And everything is the color of the desert – that pervasive tan- and low slung, blending into the environment like some vast mirage. The zoning appears to be tightly enforced. I looked real hard for litter, but saw absolutely none, even in some of the “bad” neighborhoods I happened into looking for gas. An out of towner has to look for everything, as signage is sparse. It makes Germantown look like Summer avenue. Landscaping is rocks and cacti. There is a general feeling of design purpose, consitency, and integrity.
I posted some of my photos, mostly of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, on flickr.