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| Shadows of Elpidio Rocha and Greg Larson on a Sacramento sidewalk |
Preface:
While
researching the Kansas City architect, Edward Buehler Delk, I was told that an
eighty-seven-year-old man named Elpidio Rocha, who once knew Delk, was living
in Sacramento. I contacted Elpidio and
discovered that in 1953 he was a twenty-seven-year-old engineer/architect working
for the Kansas City Parks Department when he met Delk (1885-1956). At that time, Delk was a consultant for the
Parks Department and was nearing the end of his architectural career.
This
blog posting is a brief memoir of my visit with Elpidio Rocha, and is not intended as a
full assessment or review of the careers of Rocha or Delk. The goal is to share the experience of my
time with Elpidio and my thoughts on how it affected me.
The
visits occurred during February 14th and 15th, 2013, in
the second floor atrium at The Inn Off Capitol Park, in Sacramento, California,
near Elpidio’s apartment. We also met on
the evening of February 14th, when I drove us to dinner in the area
called Old Sacramento.
A Meeting of the Minds
non-fiction research and memoir
by Gregory E. Larson, AIA
I’m not a person who gets easily excited,
but after making contact with Elpidio Rocha via phone and email, I was more
than intrigued at the possibility of meeting him face-to-face. The eighty-seven-year-old
engineer/architect/artist’s mind was sharp. He was full of energy and had much to tell
about architecture, politics, Kansas City, and life in general. Not only had he known Edward Buehler Delk, but
they had long conversations and Elpidio was mentored by him. His recollections would
add a big piece to the research puzzle that I had been crafting of Delk. In February of 2013, during a trip to San
Francisco, I scheduled a two-day visit with Elpidio in Sacramento.
At our first meeting, we ate lunch at a
small deli just a block from my hotel.
Elpidio began the discussion on a variety of topics, and our minds
traveled over decades, a journey through an intellectual landscape of design,
politics and history. Early on in the
conversation I knew that our interests were similar, yet different, and our thoughts
on architectural design were simple, yet complex.
After
lunch, we took a leisurely walk in the warm winter sun, our shadows side by
side as we made our way along the sidewalk to the hotel to continue the
discussion.
Elpidio’s childhood stories reveal much
about him, his culture, and how he established his passion for science and art.
He was born at 23rd and
Holly in the Mexican-American
Barrio in
Kansas City in 1925, where poor education, subservient jobs and ongoing
discrimination were dished out to the community by those in the majority.
Elpidio’s parents believed in a good
education, both from school and from quality time spent with the family. He remembers meetings at home to discuss
various topics, with different family members assigned to lead each gathering.
He has memories of time spent with his
father during trips around the city, especially the time they went to see the
circus when it came to town. They
watched the elephants and men unload the train cars and erect the small village
for the performers and staff. His father
could not afford tickets to see the big-top performance, so he informed Elpidio
that the activities “back stage” were much more interesting. Elpidio remembers the sights and smells of
walking through the commissary tent, of watching the clowns practice with their
colorful props, and of seeing the raised pedals in the car operated by a dwarf
clown.
During elementary school, Elpidio’s
parents transferred him from the school in the Barrio to Lowell School, which
was located near Penn Valley Park, in the German-American community. An open-air wing had been added to the school
for children at risk of getting tuberculosis.
Elpidio’s aunt had died from the disease, and his parents believed the
open-air school was a good prescription for him. He remembers the windows in the classrooms
being fully open during the winter, and students were given special meals, cold
showers, and hooded clothes. He thrived
in the educational environment, but remembers the German-Americans yelling at
him to “go back to Mexico” as he walked near the school.
His teacher, Miss Gladys Blunk, noticed
Elpidio’s artistic talent and she was able to get him a scholarship for Sunday
classes at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and later for classes at the Kansas City
Art Institute. Wilbur Niewald was one of
his classmates at Lowell School. Both he
and Elpidio would become future instructors at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Elpidio saw the world from two
perspectives: the Barrio view and the “cultural world” of the majority. At the age of eight, he struggled with what
he described as a “painful racist environment,” and he remembers several times
when he sought out a darkened gallery at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, sat on a
bench, and confronted his emotions as he focused on a sculpture of the Shiva
dancing on the monsters of ignorance
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Shiva Nataraja
(Los Angeles County Museum of Art) |
As his artistic talent grew, Elpidio’s
father showed him the Country Club Plaza.
He pointed to the Spanish-style buildings and told Elpidio to “unlock
these people from their cages,” referencing those who perpetuated the use of architectural
symbols of the European design, symbols for those in a position of power. In retrospect, it is ironic that when Elpidio
began his professional career as an architect, he came to know and respect
Edward Buehler Delk, who had created the Country Club Plaza master plan.
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| The Country Club Plaza - Kansas City, Missouri |
The professional career of Elpidio has been
an interesting journey, and what is mentioned here just scratches the surface. He not only “unlocked some cages,” but he
also rattled a few during his career while sharing his design philosophy to wed
art and science to create an organic, sustainable and democratic architecture
for the public.
After studying architecture, engineering
and humanities at Kansas State University, he obtained an engineering degree in
1951 and began working at the Kansas City Engineering Department, while
working at a structural engineer’s office at night and on weekends. He accepted a job in the Kansas City Parks
Department in 1953, where he met Delk.
Elpidio’s remembrances of Delk confirmed
one of my conclusions, that Delk was a true gentleman . . . but our meeting
also revealed something new to me.
Elpidio believes that in 1953, the sixty-eight-year-old Delk was tired
of the Beaux Arts style of design, and may have been tired as a practicing
professional. Delk had a small office in
the Parks Department, as a consultant.
Six months each year, Delk and his wife travelled to Europe.
Elpidio took Delk’s marketing advice
to heart and in the 1960s he began his own professional practice. He also taught design at the Kansas City Art
Institute. One of his projects was to
design a park on the 27th and Madison site where Lowell School had
been. He privately dedicated the project
to his mother and to the art teacher, Miss Blunk. Unfortunately, the park was demolished when a
freeway was extended towards downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
He was also influenced by the organic
designs of Bruce Goff, and they became friends.
In the late ’60s he became the lead
designer on the Urban Renewal Agency – Center City Project for the downtown mall
in Kansas City, Kansas. It received mixed reviews depending upon the social,
cultural, or artistic viewpoint of the reviewer.
Elpidio then focused his career towards
teaching and instructing, and he moved to the west coast, where he taught at
several different institutions:
California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo, California and Pomona, California
The Oakland School of Arts – Oakland, California
University of California - Davis, California
University of Southern California – Los Angeles, California
University of Oregon – Eugene, Oregon
For a brief time in 1978, he took a
break from his academic career to become the architect for the United Farm
Workers and Cesar Chavez.
On the second day of my interview with
Elpidio, I showed him the historical slides of Delk and his career. He shared with me that he did not agree with
Delk’s Beaux Arts design style, but he respected him. Delk was an honest man and shared with Elpidio his method for obtaining clients. Delk told
him, “Wash your hands before you meet with clients. Wear the style of clothes they wear, drive
the types of cars they drive, and eat at restaurants they frequent.” It was valued advice that Elpidio used in his
early career.
We sat beside each other on a sofa in
the hotel atrium, with the laptop computer in front of us. I displayed the 1951 picture of Delk standing
at Starlight Theatre, his last major design.
Elpidio looked at the picture and spoke in a soft, reverent tone, “Oh,
Eddie, you were quite a guy.” In that
moment, it seemed as if sixty years were washed away, as if he wanted to pick
up the conversation that had been silent for decades.
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Edward Buehler Delk - Starlight Theatre - 1951
(archive photo courtesy of Starlight Theatre) |
I
was overcome with emotion but held back the tears. I realized that my journey to research Delk
had introduced me to unexpected people and places. My research back into history has taught me
more about life and how I fit into it. Delk
was from the generation of Elpidio’s father.
Elpidio is from the generation of my father. In our Sacramento meeting, Elpidio and I
connected as professionals, as artists and gentlemen, sharing cross-generational
and cross-cultural wisdom.
We said our “good-byes” and I drove
out into the California sunshine, a better person for having met Elpidio Rocha.
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| Elpidio Rocha - Sacramento, California - February 2013 |
Sources:
·
Email correspondence between author and
Elpidio Rocha from late 2012 and early 2013.
·
Meetings between author and Elpidio
Rocha on February 14th and 15th, 2013, in Sacramento,
California.
·
entrelíneas,
vol. 2 no. 1-2, 1972, Penn Valley Community College, Kansas City, Missouri.
