CityScape: San Diego Honors the Late James Hubbell with ‘Architecture of Jubilation’ Exhibit

The exhibit “James Hubbell: Architecture of Jubilation” at San Diego’s central library and three branches couldn’t have come at a more propitious time. Hubbell died May 17 at age 92 and the exhibit, which runs through Aug. 4, is an expansive and inspiring eulogy for San Diego’s sage of organic art and architecture.

The exhibit takes its name from Hubbell’s 1974 essay “Architecture of Jubilation,” which lays out his basic philosophy under the heading “Architecture must take measure of all that it is to be human. Somehow it must count our galaxy and a smile, equally…”

Timed to coincide with World Design Capital San Diego Tijuana 2024, and with bilingual texts, the exhibit provides a sweeping overview of Hubbell’s work. There are drawings and sculptures. Watercolors and sketchbooks. Wall displays devoted to major projects. Glass cases packed with notebooks, magazine articles, photos and memorabilia such as the children’s book “Flicka,” a sign of Hubbell’s early fascination with nature and the beauty of her creations — especially horses.

Hubbell was among a core group of San Diego architects who drew inspiration from nature. As a young man he traveled to Africa, Europe and the Far East. During the Korean War, he served as an Army base artist. The exhibit includes posters, small objects and paintings from his travels.

He attended Cranbrook Art Academy in Michigan before landing in San Diego, where he worked with Sim Bruce Richards, then went out on his own. Other San Diegans in the organic architecture line include Ken Kellogg and Wallace Cunningham.

A significant portion of the exhibit is devoted to the hilltop 10-acre compound west of Julian that Hubbell and his wife Anne named Ilan-Lael, Hebrew for “a tree that belongs to God.” They purchased the property in 1958 and here is where they raised a family and where his art took shape, from the first construction — a tiny home/studio — to the expanse of structures that give this place the look and feel, as many have observed, of a Hobbit-sphere.

Over the years, this Shangri-la served as a sort of laboratory that proved the benefits of Hubbell’s belief in communal creativity. He felt that anyone’s life could be enriched by a hands-on artistic experience: building with bricks and boulders, kilning tiles, cutting stained glass, moulding cement or bending and welding metal. Buildings and art flourished with the participation of fellow artists, family, friends and hundreds of volunteers eager to work and learn.

Photos in the exhibit, many of them by Hubbell’s photographer and longtime friend John Durant, capture the handmade compound: walls and columns of adobe bricks; contoured roofs of concrete and plaster that evoke seashells, fossils or strewn leaves; translucent stained glass; paths and walkways of stone and tile.

Much of Ilan-Lael was destroyed by the 2003 Cedar Fire, but its spirit survived as it was rebuilt piece by piece. Today, it is open for tours, by reservation.

“Jubilation” includes a re-creation of Hubbell’s hilltop studio. His swiveling wood chair, drafting table and wood-burning stove rest on a terra cotta floor divided by a meandering mosaic of blue, white, aqua and yellow tiles that evokes underwater scenes.

Tables and shelves hold mementos from his travels, from shells and feathers to a Mexican fiesta banner of stenciled squares. Here too are books such as “From the Earth Up: The Art and Vision of James Hubbell” and “Loving Frank,” a novel based on Frank Lloyd Wright and his muse Mamah Borthwick.

Nearby, a wall has maps that show 38 sites of Hubbell’s art and architecture, ranging from a chapel near Sea Ranch in Northern California to various works at Rancho La Puerta spa near Tecate (spa founder Deborah Szekely was Hubbell’s longtime patron), churches, children’s schools in Tijuana and seven Pacific Rim Parks.

The parks represent Hubbell’s belief that the process of artmaking and public gathering can connect people. They were built by international groups of architecture students and volunteers joined together in creative experiences that transcended politics, conflicts, religions and histories.

San Diego’s park, “Pearl of the Pacific” on the San Diego bayfront, is an example of what public art can be: inspirational, original, handmade, not generic or clichéd. Overseas locations are Vladivostok, Russia; Yantai, China; Jeju Island, South Korea; Kaohsiung City, Taiwan; and Salinlahi Park Puerto Princesa, Philippines.

Represented by video (the exhibit includes several video kiosks) are 18 interior and exterior doors of carved wood, sculpted metal and stained glass with intricate painterly details that Hubbell and his artisans created decades ago for the palace of a sheik in Abu Dhabi. Even in digital form, they provide a concentrated shot of Hubbell’s organic design.

In addition to the main “Jubilation” exhibit at the downtown library, satellite shows are on view concurrently at branch libraries in Scripps Miramar Ranch, Mission Valley and Otay Mesa Nestor.

For Hubbell, life and death are part of nature’s cycles. Hubbell’s imagining of his own death describes how his ashes will be scattered at Ilan-Lael, carried to sea by the San Dieguito River, and across the Pacific to South Korea’s Jeju Island. There, a young girl diving for sea urchins will discover an oyster shell containing a single pearl.

“Architecture of Jubilation” was curated by Marianne Gerdes and Bonnie Domingos and designed by Laurie Dietter. Sarah Banks is the gallery assistant.

The family requests that donations in Hubbell’s memory be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation, or:

ILAN-LAEL FOUNDATION

℅ The James Hubbell Memorial Art Fund

P.O. Box 1221

Julian, California, 92036

Dirk Sutro has written extensively about architecture and design in Southern California. His column appears monthly in Times of San Diego.

CityScape is supported by the San Diego Architectural Foundation, promoting outstanding architecture, landscape, interior and urban design to improve the quality of life for all San Diegans.