Art: The Labyrinth of Watts

Even Californians blink unbelievingly at the architectural labyrinth in Sam Rodilla’s backyard in the modest little Los Angeles suburb of Watts. It is a steel and concrete lacework of fountains, arches and pinnacles that would be far more at home among the temples of Bangkok than in bungalow-land. The current Arts &

Architecture tells how it got there; it is Sam Rodilla’s tribute to his adopted country.

Sam was born in Italy 72 years ago, emigrated in 1888, settled down happily to his work as a tile-setter. The U.S. was good to him. Thirty years ago, he told himself: “Before I die I’m going to do something for the U.S.” Sam “had it in mind to do something big, and I did.”

He began his labyrinth without a long-range plan, improvised as he went along. He set up steel ribbing, plastered the ribbing with concrete, encrusted the concrete with seashells, broken glass, tiles and pottery. So far, he has used 7,000 sacks of cement, 75,000 seashells, several truckloads of broken bottles from the city dump.

When the local building commission objected to Sam’s project as dangerous, Sam made a trip to Sacramento, got the state’s O.K. Since then, he has spent all his spare time pushing his towers skyward. At first he topped them off at 25 feet, but the highest now rises 104 feet. Neighbors who once looked on Sam as a hopeless eccentric have developed neighborly pride in his work. Other Californians, visiting Watts to inspect the towers, bring along offerings of broken glass and pottery. Sam promptly chips them to proper size and shape, builds them into his masterpiece.

According to Critic Jules Langsner in Arts & Architecture, Sam’s work “lacks the discipline of genuine folk art” but still is “bizarre . . . pleasant” and even “disturbing.” Sam himself has little time to think about artistic theories. “I’m worried to death to get this work done before I leave,” he says. “But I’m a pretty happy man.”