Don't Be Stupid, Be a Smarty, Come and Join the American Institute of Architects

Jesse Walker | September 27, 2007

According to the Los Angeles Times, the Navy plans "to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications" at a base in Coronado, California. Seems people had started to notice what four buildings looked like when viewed from the air:

Apparently, "the shape of the buildings, designed by local architect John Mock, was not noted until after the groundbreaking in 1967 -- and since it was not visible from the ground, a decision was made not to make any changes." Then Google Earth came along, and word started to slip out.

I love the name "John Mock," by the way. His website reveals that in 1974 he was named "Mr. Masonry" by the Masonry Contractors Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties -- obviously a sign of a Masonic-Nazi connection.

Comments

Episiarch|9.27.07 @ 3:56PM|#

Now we know where the Ark of the Covenant ended up.

|9.27.07 @ 4:01PM|#

Ever notice that many library carrels are shaped liked swastikas? We had 'em all through K-12, and my law school had 'em.

Nazis. Librarians. Why doesn't that juxtaposition surprise me? And joe says the Nazis weren't socialists. Ha!

Not a NAZI|9.27.07 @ 4:03PM|#

Until WW2 the Swastika was considered a good luck symbol and included in many words of architecture. The State Capital building of Ohio has them in several places. Several cultures still consider it a good luck symbol. Look at some of the symbols of the Falun Dafa or modern Hindus.

Libertarian Librarian|9.27.07 @ 4:06PM|#

Pro Libertate, I can assure you I am NO NAZI, I work at a private college and even if you and I might agree most librarians are left of center they ARE friends of the libertarian movement when it comes to things like privacy, civil liberties and free speech.

|9.27.07 @ 4:09PM|#

It's only fair. The Army got a pentagram.

|9.27.07 @ 4:11PM|#

Libertarian librarian how many times have you had sex in the "stacks"? Seriously, is it hot and heavy up there?
How often do you catch people having sex in the library? What type?
Makes the saying, "I am going to the library to crack open a few books" take on a whole new meaning.
thanks

|9.27.07 @ 4:19PM|#

If Libertarian Librarian HAS done something like that I will put a stop to it!

|9.27.07 @ 4:19PM|#

So that's where the inspiration of this level from Wolfenstein 3d came from.

In all seriousness, we would all be laughing if the government spent millions to redesign a building that looked like a pentagram or a hammer & sickle. What makes a Swastika so different?

NP|9.27.07 @ 4:20PM|#

Jesse, you naughty boy. Where the hell do you get all this kooky stuff?

|9.27.07 @ 4:21PM|#

Google Earth is one of the things that I use to waste time enjoyably, without requiring much thought.

Timothy|9.27.07 @ 4:24PM|#

Why not just build a big tent over it?

|9.27.07 @ 4:28PM|#

I can't wait for John Stewart to weigh in on this.

|9.27.07 @ 4:40PM|#

NP: Actually, this has already hit the mainstream news.

The Congregational Church on Angell Street in Providence, Rhode Island has numerous swastikas in its ceiling design.

|9.27.07 @ 4:42PM|#

that's because they worship Dagon in Providence.

|9.27.07 @ 4:45PM|#

Crafty devils, weren't they?

Elemenope|9.27.07 @ 4:46PM|#

Of course we do, when we're not supplicating to Cthulu. H.P. Lovecraft...a native.

Fluffy|9.27.07 @ 4:51PM|#

Perhaps to save the taxpayers some money we could just have the current tenants move out and relocate the George W Bush Presidential Library here.

Ba-dump-bump!

|9.27.07 @ 4:54PM|#

...Ohio has them in several places.

Marge Schott's casket?

Tom Accusoti|9.27.07 @ 4:56PM|#

obviously a sign of a Masonic-Nazi connection.

*winces*

Generally we're accused of being closet Zionists.

This is a new twist on those Illuminati-Rosicrucian-Guardians of the Grail theories I usually have to explain.

NP|9.27.07 @ 4:59PM|#

James,

Not to belabor a silly point, but I was referring to Jesse's penchant for off-the-wall news items.

|9.27.07 @ 5:12PM|#

The downtown (Skillman) branch of the Detroit Public Library has swastikas around the exterior in the masonry. They're ubiquitious. I've seen them embossed in pre WWII sidewalk sections. You might think that people would understand that the symbol was misappropriated by the Nazis. In many cases, they don't. Oh well.

Doctor Duck|9.27.07 @ 5:16PM|#

Didn't see this mentioned, but... doesn't the Naaaahzi version have arms pointing CCW, instead of CW as shown?

|9.27.07 @ 5:24PM|#

so if I invent a widget that functions great but happens to require a particular shape similar to a despised political movement...

Oh fuck this is retarded...The fucking buildings that shape give it maximum floor space with views.

|9.27.07 @ 5:26PM|#

The Navy has an excess $600,000 to waste on such things?

Just kidding. Of course it does.

|9.27.07 @ 5:30PM|#

Doctor Duck,

I wasn't sure myself, until I found this.

|9.27.07 @ 5:32PM|#

Hey, it's on an amphibious base! They could just put the buildings underwater, then nobody could see them!

|9.27.07 @ 5:39PM|#

First the Nazis ruined the swastika for the rest of us. The wiccans screwed the five pointed star, and teh joos took care of the six pointed one. The Irish claimed the clover leaf. And now the god forsaken homos have gone and made the rainbow totally gay.

wingnutx|9.27.07 @ 5:47PM|#

That's the Seabee barracks.

|9.27.07 @ 5:48PM|#

Quite a coincidence to see this on the same day as the cornfield swastika.

|9.27.07 @ 5:51PM|#

That's the Seabee barracks

Always knew they were a bunch of nazis

MT1(ss)MayorOmalleySuxs (back in the day)

|9.27.07 @ 5:54PM|#

I work in the building on the right.


If you pan out on Google Earth and look west you see a couple of barracks that look like planes heading east.

|9.27.07 @ 5:55PM|#

If we change that building, won't the Hindu's get offended?

|9.27.07 @ 5:57PM|#

National Socialist swine! An obvious attempt to propagandize air travelers...

Rhywun|9.27.07 @ 5:59PM|#

Fascinating that whoever took that shot of the cornfield swastika got the angle just right.

Also, I call bullshit on Mr. Mock's assertion that he didn't notice any resemblance, unless one is to assume that he never looked at his own blueprints.

|9.27.07 @ 6:01PM|#

If you really want to keep up on crypto-swastikism, regularly pop into YTMND and look for "OMG secret nazi" ...

They were on top of this years ago.

|9.27.07 @ 6:05PM|#

Given the age and condition of those building, the best thing to fix them is to tear them down and build something new.

Those buildings were orignally barracks and other three still are (though not all Seabees. Two people per room (approx 20 x 20 ft), 1 bathroom per floor. Cinder block construction. No insulation. Iffy heating and cooling.
One has been remodeled with somewhat nicer accomodations, but the other two still suck.

Mine is full of offices converted from old barracks rooms.

Ska|9.27.07 @ 6:09PM|#

If we change that building, won't the Hindu's get offended?



As long as it doesn't offend Muslims it's OK.

|9.27.07 @ 6:18PM|#

so if I invent a widget that functions great but happens to require a particular shape similar to a despised political movement...

This is why the Universal Cancer-Curing Machine That, for Complex Functional Reasons, Absolutely Must Be in a Shape That Just Happens to Strongly Resemble a Satanic Goat-Head Pentagram is still locked up in a crate in the basement of Johns-Hopkins.

Curmudgeon78|9.27.07 @ 6:18PM|#

How about we tell people to grow the hell up and quit crapping their drawers everytime they see a frickin' swastika? Nazis haven't killed anybody in 52 years, stop giving them power by being such pussies about some damn buildings.

wingnutx|9.27.07 @ 6:25PM|#

Seabees are actually a bunch of Sikhs.

|9.27.07 @ 6:26PM|#

From above, my apartment building looks like Hitler's moustache. I demand they re-design it and give me a bigger balcony, preferably with a hammock and grill.

|9.27.07 @ 6:37PM|#

You know, we beat the Nazis, big time. Maybe we should take back the swastika. Heck, put it on the flag! It's the sun, damn it, the sun! The wheel of life!

|9.27.07 @ 7:00PM|#

I lived on that base for a while. Don't recall being offended, but I had other things on my mind.

Orangutang|9.27.07 @ 7:08PM|#

I gotta start an evil cult built around the symbol of a split level ranch.

|9.27.07 @ 7:12PM|#

Rhywun | September 27, 2007, 5:59pm | #

Fascinating that whoever took that shot of the cornfield swastika got the angle just right.

Also, I call bullshit on Mr. Mock's assertion that he didn't notice any resemblance, unless one is to assume that he never looked at his own blueprints.

I assume this about all architects.

|9.27.07 @ 7:16PM|#

I remember seeing this a while ago, and it turns out this story has popped up from time to time over the years, but it hasn't really exploded as a story until now. People just honestly didn't care until the gov't decided to waste money. Maybe there is hope for libertarianism after all.

|9.27.07 @ 7:50PM|#

Now I've begun to wonder if the architect of Stonehenge might have been a subversive along the lines of Mock (German origin--Mauch).
From above, Stonehenge is a twat, right?
It was the first vagina monologue?

Mr Hilter|9.27.07 @ 8:04PM|#

Deine ganze Unterseite sind gehören uns.

Doctor Duck|9.27.07 @ 8:04PM|#

I wasn't sure myself, until I found this.

I guess I should have just looked. But all that stuff is packed away in a trunk in the attic... in Argentina...

|9.27.07 @ 8:23PM|#

"Also, I call bullshit on Mr. Mock's assertion that he didn't notice any resemblance, unless one is to assume that he never looked at his own blueprints."

That's exactly what my coworker and I said when we saw it at lunch, Rhywun. But in our line of work, it's the engineers' fault regardless.

(Damn it's an efficient plan, though. I wonder what Albert Speer would think...)

|9.27.07 @ 8:39PM|#

Doctor Duck,

I wasn't sure myself, until I found this.

So John David, how far did you spew after visiting that site?

Wulf|9.27.07 @ 8:54PM|#

That's the Seabee barracks.

So can't they renovate it as a training exercise or something? I mean, they build stuff all the time, so why not live in it afterwards? Can do, bishes.

|9.27.07 @ 9:40PM|#

No they can't do much work on the base - we hire civilians to do that.

The only work they've done on NAB in the two years I've been there is to build a small carwash - took two years to complete.

|9.27.07 @ 11:27PM|#

Maybe ole Mock figured hey, its a highly efficient design whose similarity to the swastika is totally incidental.

He did make it like 30 years before anyone gave a crap.

|9.28.07 @ 12:04AM|#

The only work they've done on NAB in the two years I've been there is to build a small carwash - took two years to complete.

Hey! The sooner you finish the job, the sooner you're out of work. Everyone in construction and government knows that! ;-)

dave|9.28.07 @ 3:35AM|#

Please note that a counter-clockwise "swastika" is an entirely different symbol, though easy ton get mixed up with the real deal. The building design appears to be clockwise though.

There was a dungeon (the third) in the original Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo that was shaped like a counter-clockwise swastika. A minor scandal broke out after the game was released. In Japan, the designers did not notice the problem.

Overall though, historical usage matters despite true origins. A pentagram implies Satanism these days and a swastika implies Nazi whether that's what the symbols are supposed to mean or not.

|9.28.07 @ 4:37AM|#

It´s not surprising at all, if you are out of the US. Do you really ignore what your army does around the world? Yeah man, they are worst than nazis. I sugest you to learn languages and to watch news from Europe or South America. Maybe after being informed (I mean informed, not indoctrinated by cnn) you will be less surprised next time that you find a swastika. I see a very black future for the poor ignorant people of the US.

|9.28.07 @ 6:08AM|#

Mick: French or German?

pfs|9.28.07 @ 9:40AM|#

Lookup locations of other shapes worldwide on satellitepictures easy by address?
http://www.picsfromspace.nl
A combination of Googlemaps API and thirdparty addressdata with address suggestion.

pfs|9.28.07 @ 9:50AM|#

Lookup locations wof other shapes orldwide on satellitepictures easy by address?
http://www.picsfromspace.nl
A combination of Googlemaps API and thirdparty addressdata with address suggestion.

|9.28.07 @ 11:02AM|#

Reminds me of the "Islamic crescent" brouhaha over the initial design Flight 93 9/11 memorial. The freaked out had to rotate the image 110 degrees to make it look like an Islamic crescent (check out the orientation of the reference numbers on the image in the link), but what they heck, if there is hay to be made, people will make it. It's the American way!

wingnutx|9.28.07 @ 12:22PM|#

So can't they renovate it as a training exercise or something? I mean, they build stuff all the time, so why not live in it afterwards? Can do, bishes.

We run afoul of regulations against taking jobs from local civilian labor.

My battalion couldn't even build a house for Habitat for Humanities, since it was "unfair competition".

Rhywun|9.28.07 @ 12:26PM|#

In Japan, the designers did not notice the problem.

You'd think Japan--more than most countries outside Europe and North America--would be a little more familiar with the swastika even if it's reversed.

|9.30.07 @ 11:26PM|#

You'd think Japan--more than most countries outside Europe and North America--would be a little more familiar with the swastika even if it's reversed.

... yes, they probably are -- as a Buddhist good luck symbol.

My dad was in Japan during the early 1950s and his photos of Buddhist shrines often feature little reversed swastikas.

So as a result, the Japanese might well be a little less likely to recognize the unique connotations of the swastika among Americans and Europeans.

|10.1.07 @ 6:36PM|#

BTW, here's the direct link to the buildings..