Horton Plaza's debut puts San Diego on the 1980s mall map


The neon sun beat down on the freshly-minted pastel stucco, oh boy, did it ever! August the ninth, nineteen eighty-five, a date etched in the annals of…well, something down there in sunny San Diego! Not just any date, no sirree, but the glorious, the stupendous, the absolutely happening unveiling of Horton Plaza! The scene: San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, where history’s ghosts—and Alonzo Horton’s 19th-century dreams of a bustling port city—mingle with the scent of fresh paint and popcorn. 

Jon Jerde - that mad architectural alchemist - and developer Ernest W. Hahn called it a "festival marketplace," a name as bland as beige wallpaper in a La Jolla condo. But what it was, my friends, was a vertical kaleidoscope of sherbet-colored towers and zig-zagging escalators, a postmodern palazzo plopped right down in the dusty heart of downtown. Like a fever dream dreamt by Michael Graves after one too many bong hits and a viewing of 1980's Flash Gordon.

It wasn't a mall; it was a psychedelic cathedral - a place where mismatched levels, one-way ramps, sudden drop-offs, whimsical turrets, and ersatz Italianate fountains created a sacred ground for the unfettered worship of burgeoning consumerism. 

And then, the moment! The ribbon, a shimmering Mylar concoction, was snipped! The floodgates opened! And the hordes surged forth, a tide of humanity cresting like the nearby bay, eager to explore the multi-leveled labyrinth of boutiques and eateries. There were fudge shops emitting plumes of cocoa-scented air, boutiques displaying pastel-colored blouses that screamed "Southern California leisure," and restaurants promising culinary delights ranging from nouvelle cuisine to something wonderful called "California pizza." Providing the ballast that prevented the whole affair from simply lifting off into space were sturdy anchors The Broadway, Mervyn's, Nordstrom, and that California department store icon, J.W. Robinson's.

It was a marvelous, gaudy, slightly-surreal affair. A testament to the American appetite for the new, the bright, the bigger-than-life. Nobody does America like California, and Horton Plaza was nothing less than a declaration that downtown San Diego was happening, was vibrant, was ready to take on the world, one overpriced souvenir t-shirt at a time.

Oh, the humanity! And the retail opportunities! It was a beautiful thing, in its own uniquely San Diegan, slightly off-kilter way. A monument to the age of the escalator and the atrium, bathed in the perpetual glow of the California sun. A true testament to the…well, you had to be there, baby. You just had to be there. Horton Plaza stood triumphant, a dazzling, disorienting monument to what a city could dream to be. ZAP! POW! WHAMMO! San Diego had arrived, and the whole world was watching.

Location: Horton Plaza, San Diego, CA 92101, USA

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