Big Blue & bright colors from the 70s

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

..

IDEAL CITY​

And now a really big sign.........

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

When I was there circa '80-'81, they were constantly working on that place in one way or another.

A particularly nasty memory was when someone must have developed a backlog, lol, in Estates, and a whole bunch of dishes dried out after breakfast, so when they finally sent them through the monstrous dishwashing machine that they had down there, all the spots of dried egg didn't completely wash off...

I don't know how many PAC personnel got sick that day, I just know I was one of them. It was a major flap.

They were in the midst of renos on our dorm, which was on the top floor of one of the wings of the big blue building that now has the giant sign on it. I spent the next couple of days in abject misery lying in one of the bunk-beds in this room, so sick my eyeballs ached, and the floor was covered in construction debris, which included broken glass and metal shards! This made staggering to the head to throw up particularly challenging, but I Made It Go Right!

I have been giving more thought to your story Rmack. Were they still using the bright colors on these 7th floor renovations or had they started replacing it?

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

. . .
Just for fun . . . it could be made less of an eyesore.

#1 is the Miami Vice look.
View attachment 10148

Very clever ILove2Lurk. Could have potential.

 

[looker]

There is The Art book, copyright 1991, by Bridge Publications that states on page 105 Color Associations:



click on the pictures below. I'm not saying this is true, I'm just posting what the book says.

LRH was so full of shit. Blue and RED are the paint colors that fade the fastest under sunlight. Blue into streaky dismal prison Grey and red into abused pink, think Campbell's tomato soup from red.

Blue is the the color for a car most bought by the public. Smurf Blue just makes the real estate value go down for 5 blocks surrounding Big Blue.

Blueish green however has been recently been thought to enhance creativity.


The California prison system painted the Incoming reception area for jails and prisons a kind of pinkish. It was supposedly supposed to calm aggressive prisoners and remind them of being in the womb safe and warm. There are some studies that do corroborate these findings. Jus sayin.

Most seacoast buildings were a sort of coral color. Coral and white are beautiful against a blue sea background Think Marriot Hotels.

The Greek tourist towns have many villas painted white or coral with royal blue roofs. NOW that is very striking against a seacoast. Not at all like the smog eaten dismal grey blue of ASHO.

Besides BLUE, GREEN, and RED are the most hideous colors to try to change back to a neutral. They require many coats of color blocking white primer. The blue and green just seem burn through white primer. it usually takes 3- 5 coats minimum to kill it.

Whats more is Grey Blue is the opposite of red or infra red spectrum so the building is nearly the same as black as far as heat absorbing. So the color scheme is just a huge heat sink and costs big bucks to cool it.

Oh My the OT brilliance just is beyond belief. Just stultifying.....

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

I don't think it would matter what color they painted Big Blue. The building is ugly from the inside out and if you painted it white it would be called "Wacky White" or "Wicked White" or some other funny name denigrating the weird people inside. Maybe they could have painted it Nicotine Yellow to match dead El Ron's teeth. The bottom line is that the Church of Scientology is an evil organization that has caused countless people to suffer needlessly.

No matter what color they paint it the ugliness will permeate the walls of the organization and be visible to everyone who is outside. It's what's inside that is really ugly.

Please be patient with us. The actual color is secondary to understanding the process that selected it.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

LRH was so full of shit. Blue and RED are the paint colors that fade the fastest under sunlight. Blue into streaky dismal prison Grey and red into abused pink, think Campbell's tomato soup from red.

Blue is the the color for a car most bought by the public. Smurf Blue just makes the real estate value go down for 5 blocks surrounding Big Blue.

Blueish green however has been recently been thought to enhance creativity.


The California prison system painted the Incoming reception area for jails and prisons a kind of pinkish. It was supposedly supposed to calm aggressive prisoners and remind them of being in the womb safe and warm. There are some studies that do corroborate these findings. Jus sayin.

Most seacoast buildings were a sort of coral color. Coral and white are beautiful against a blue sea background Think Marriot Hotels.

The Greek tourist towns have many villas painted white or coral with royal blue roofs. NOW that is very striking against a seacoast. Not at all like the smog eaten dismal grey blue of ASHO.

Besides BLUE, GREEN, and RED are the most hideous colors to try to change back to a neutral. They require many coats of color blocking white primer. The blue and green just seem burn through white primer. it usually takes 3- 5 coats minimum to kill it.

Whats more is Grey Blue is the opposite of red or infra red spectrum so the building is nearly the same as black as far as heat absorbing. So the color scheme is just a huge heat sink and costs big bucks to cool it.

Oh My the OT brilliance just is beyond belief. Just stultifying.....

I think this thread has established a few good points.

LRH was very much into the use of color in photography and film making for Scientology promotional material. This can be seen in the first "What Is Scientology" edition which I understand significantly preceded Gold and the selection of colors at the Complex. It is likely he wanted to apply the same principles to the building.

The 70s were not a good period for American aesthetic design.

As you indicate, any color selection for a large building in Los Angeles must be able to either withstand fading or fade evenly unless it is expected to be painted more often and any blue or primary color is probably not a good choice. The darker a color, the more it can fade so even trying to compensate with a darker blue means those areas that get the greatest SW exposure will not fade evenly with the rest.

The historical and inherent nature of the building's architectural design seems to have been completely ignored. This isn't so important on the interior but if it is not the starting point for any exterior color selection then whatever is done will not work well. The Main Building and Lebanon Hall had art deco motifs so that would have set the standard. It might be possible to use a more modern color concept on the other more contemporary buildings but whatever was used on those would still need to coordinate with the older buildings.

 

[Lulu Belle]

So what you saw must have been the re-do. Circa 86? That coincides with the rise of DM, yes?

PAC was the last Sea Org base to be renoed. I don't think they started the sandblasting and painting until the 90s. I know they didn't start actually renovating the orgs until the 90s.

One reason I think this: LA had a big earthquake in the beginning of 1990. PAC was very shook up. If the renoes had started by then I think I would have remembered.

 

[F.Bullbait]

I think this thread has established a few good points.


The historical and inherent nature of the building's architectural design seems to have been completely ignored. This isn't so important on the interior but if it is not the starting point for any exterior color selection then whatever is done will not work well. The Main Building and Lebanon Hall had art deco motifs so that would have set the standard. It might be possible to use a more radical color concept on the other more contemporary buildings but whatever was used on those would still need to coordinate with the older buildings.

Talking about the history of the building, did you know that an old wood building is buried in the basement on the left wing (left looking at the Main Building from the front?) I think it may have been the original hospital. I recall looking out the old double hung windows of this structure and seeing the concrete foundation of the present structure. If you looked up, you could see daylight filtering down from above. I think this space was used by CMO when I was there.

 

[Smurf]

Leland is exactly right. My ex-husband was in the estates org in PAC, and I knew a number of people in PAC Renoes. When the base was renoed, the buildings were stained, not painted.

The buildings were sandblasted, the stain was applied, and the building was sealed. By the RPF.

That was the case before they re-inaugurated it as part of the LA Ideal Org. They never bothered to power wash the grime & dirty that had accumulated on the walls & simply stained over it. The dirty & grime could clearly be seen. It was gross.

They actually invested in real paint for the re-inaug.

 

[Rmack]

I have been giving more thought to your story Rmack. Were they still using the bright colors on these 7th floor renovations or had they started replacing it?

It's been a long time, but I seem to remember that they didn't use the multi-colored graphics on the walls up in the crew quarters. I would suspect that they concentrated on areas that were most likely to be seen by the public.

They were not replacing anything yet when I lived in the complex. This was '80-'81 and the paint jobs where still pretty new. In all honesty, I can't say whether or not the wall paint in the hall was new, or was still the original color from when they bought it.

The construction debris that I reported suggests that they were just getting to this top floor when I was there. However, they probably did the hallways first, and might have already done them. I don't remember the walls looking like it needed paint. The actual crew berthing spaces were certainly low priority.

Pretty soon after that, I got married and moved to the Wilcox building on the corner of Wilcox and Selma. They certainly hadn't done much renovation on that dump.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

That was the case before they re-inaugurated it as part of the LA Ideal Org. They never bothered to power wash the grime & dirty that had accumulated on the walls & simply stained over it. The dirty & grime could clearly be seen. It was gross.

They actually invested in real paint for the re-inaug.

I'm still confused about this but I think I am figuring it out:

In the original 1981 light blue the building was sandblasted, sealed and coated by an outside contractor with something that was designed to cover concrete but it was not a typical paint.

Then in the early 90s the RPF painted the entire complex by themselves with a darker blue using actual paint and they didn't pressure wash it so the dirt is bleeding through.

Does this sound correct?

 

[Lulu Belle]

I'm still confused about this but I think I am figuring it out:

In the original 1981 light blue the building was sandblasted, sealed and coated by an outside contractor with something that was designed to cover concrete but it was not a typical paint.

Then in the early 90s the RPF painted the entire complex by themselves with a darker blue using actual paint and they didn't pressure wash it so the dirt is bleeding through.

Does this sound correct?

No.

They painted it originally.

They sandblasted and stained in the early 90s.

They painted LA Org later.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

Talking about the history of the building, did you know that an old wood building is buried in the basement on the left wing (left looking at the Main Building from the front?) I think it may have been the original hospital. I recall looking out the old double hung windows of this structure and seeing the concrete foundation of the present structure. If you looked up, you could see daylight filtering down from above. I think this space was used by CMO when I was there.

I have read the old articles and have never heard that story. Something like this would surprise me. In order to build the massive Main Building they probably had to excavate everything down to bedrock. I suspect you may have been seeing an old renovation phase from the hospital days where they abandoned and encapsulated some elements.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

No.

They painted it originally.

They sandblasted and stained in the early 90s.

They painted LA Org later.

Thank you for the clarification. So there were 3 phases and now there are 2 distinctly different coatings for LAO and the rest.

 

[F.Bullbait]

I have read the old articles and have never heard that story. Something like this would surprise me. In order to build the massive Main Building they probably had to excavate everything down to bedrock. I suspect you may have been seeing an old renovation phase from the hospital days where they abandoned and encapsulated some elements.

Well, the double hung windows, squeaky wood floor and beadboard interior really dated it. I suspect they just built around and over this structure. Why they just didn't knock it down and then build the current concrete monster is a mystery.

 

[uncover]

. . .
Just for fun . . . it could be made less of an eyesore.

#1 is the Miami Vice look.
View attachment 10148

Nice examples..... could you please give it a try for a "Platoon-look" ?:

I mean with napalm in the background and all...

 

[F.Bullbait]

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

Well, the double hung windows, squeaky wood floor and beadboard interior really dated it. I suspect they just built around and over this structure. Why they just didn't knock it down and then build the current concrete monster is a mystery.

You are talking about the hall to the immediate right as you go inside the Catalina entrance?

 

[F.Bullbait]

You are talking about the hall to the immediate right as you go inside the Catalina entrance?

As far as I recall, you go into the basement and all the way to the front. I think you would be located under the wing to the left in the upper picture. Possibly in the lower triangular structure that flanks the front stairs as seen in the lower picture. This is a 40 year old memory, of course.

 

[TheOriginalBigBlue]

As far as I recall, you go into the basement and all the way to the front. I think you would be located under the wing to the left in the upper picture. Possibly in the lower triangular structure that flanks the front stairs as seen in the lower picture. This is a 40 year old memory, of course.

This picture in this link seems to answer the mystery. (Tried to attach the picture but it wouldn't work) The structures to each side of the fountain steps were added over the ground floor windows later.

http://images.frompo.com/428494324af950bcb6423805c4f5326d