Sarah ManavisVerified account

behold the Villa Montezuma, mansion of a spiritualist pianist who believed the great composers were possessing him and playing through him. it's haunted as FUCKpic.twitter.com/RxSa50NhMX

we are also back in the land of adobepic.twitter.com/iNXaQJPvUx

and, relatedly, back in the land of Spanish colonialism - this is San Diego de Alcalá, the first established (1769) of the chain of Franciscan missions that stretched up the Californian coast from Mexico. From here springs much of what makes Californian architecture Californian.pic.twitter.com/UNC5fUdtwe

there is also a degree of Spanish colonial vernacular stuff - very early 19thC, mostlypic.twitter.com/GYEsfvC1t6

niiiiicepic.twitter.com/Z1IyYpx5UH

the centrepiece of San Diego, tho, is Balboa Park, which has a huge complex of buildings used for two major fairs (in 1915 and 1935), designed - largely by the great American architect Bertram Goodhue - in exuberant, detail-rich Mexican Baroque stylepic.twitter.com/ACWu98XvvW

100% the image that drifts across the screen at the beginning of a point-and-click adventure about rescuing your sister from a remote asylum in 1927pic.twitter.com/WkIgwza5zc

the FUCK is this. bad. burn it. what.pic.twitter.com/hOk8tjU69I