Pacific View Mall Bus Stop

This wacky bus transfer station sits outside of the Pacific View mall in Ventura, California. Artist Dennis Oppenheim contributed the transfer station footprint and the 36' high bus shelter in 2002. Other public facilities, including seating, drinking fountains, bike racks and telephones were developed with a team including an architect, a landscape architect, civil and structural engineers and transit operators. The bus center's public art component was funded by the City of Ventura's Cultural Affairs Division. Speaking about the project, Dennis Oppenheim said:  "Bus Home is a shelter. The work depicts the metamorphosis of a bus becoming a house. This frozen animation of one image into another takes the form of a looping corkscrew entering the ground and coming up again. It slowly transforms from a bus to a house... For the tired and often alienated traveler the experience of waiting wished to be intervened by the realization that the transaction will be complete. The passengers will arrive at their destination. They will arrive home." The bus stop has long been a point of contention between residents of Ventura, with those who actually use the station complaining that it provides little shelter during bad weather, and locals insisting that the strange building is an eyesore. These complains haven't stopped the odd transfer station from winning awards and being hailed as a fantastic piece of abstract art.