The Watts Towers are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptures in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, built entirely by one man over 33 years. The tallest spire rises nearly 100 feet and is covered in a glittering mosaic of seashells, broken glass, pottery shards, and other found objects. Officially named “Nuestro Pueblo” (Spanish for “Our Town” or “Our Place”) by their creator, the towers are one of the most remarkable examples of folk art in the world.
Who Built Them and Why
Sabato Rodia, an Italian immigrant who went by “Simon” or “Sam,” built the towers single-handedly between 1921 and 1954. Born in Serino, Italy, around 1879, Rodia emigrated to the United States at age 17 with his brother. After his brother died in a mining accident in Pennsylvania, Rodia drifted west, working construction and odd jobs in Seattle, Oakland, and Long Beach before settling in Watts in 1920.
At roughly 42 years old, with no formal training in architecture or engineering, Rodia began building in his backyard. He never fully explained his motivation, but he named the site “Nuestro Pueblo” and welcomed neighbors to gather there, even hosting wedding ceremonies on the grounds. He worked alone for more than three decades, climbing the structures with a lineman’s safety belt, carrying a trowel in one hand and buckets of cement and mosaic pieces hanging from his elbows. In 1954, he deeded the property to a neighbor and moved away. He never returned, and he died in 1965.
What the Towers Look Like
The site includes three principal towers and six smaller ones, along with walls, walkways, a gazebo, fountains, and a ship-shaped sculpture. The West Tower, the tallest and the last one Rodia built, stands 99 and a half feet. The Center Tower reaches just under 98 feet. The East Tower, which Rodia made first, is 55 feet tall. The West Tower is encircled by rings that taper as they rise, giving it a skeletal, almost organic appearance. The other two principal towers use similar ring structures within their interiors.
Every surface is covered in mosaic. The effect from a distance is of intricate, shimmering lace made from concrete and steel. Up close, you can pick out individual objects pressed into the cement: fragments of green 7Up bottles, blue milk-of-magnesia jars, ceramic tile, mirrors, and tens of thousands of seashells.
Materials: Junk Turned Into Art
Rodia built the towers from steel reinforcing rods, pipes, chicken wire, and roughly 7,000 sacks of cement. He bent steel rods into graceful curves, wrapped them in chicken wire, and coated everything in cement. There were no bolts, no rivets, no welding, and no scaffolding. The structural skeleton is held together entirely by the way Rodia bent, wrapped, and mortared the steel.
The decoration came from whatever he could find. The site contains an estimated 75,000 seashells along with uncounted pieces of broken crockery, tile, and glass bottles. Into the wet cement he also pressed wire baskets, ears of corn, pieces of metal, cracked phonograph records, broken Victorian furniture, doormats, and tools. Neighborhood children brought him scraps and broken dishes in exchange for fruit or pennies. The result is a surface that functions almost like an archaeological record of everyday life in early 20th-century Los Angeles.
How the Towers Survived Demolition
After Rodia left, the city of Los Angeles deemed the towers unsafe and ordered them demolished. In 1959, a group of supporters organized a structural stress test. An engineer attached a steel cable to the tallest tower and pulled with 10,000 pounds of force. The tower held. The cable broke. The city backed down, and the towers have stood ever since.
The site was designated a National Historic Landmark and is recognized as a California Historical Landmark. It is now managed by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, with conservation work led by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in partnership with structural engineers at UCLA. The main ongoing challenge is cracking in the cement caused by temperature swings and seismic activity. UCLA engineers have installed sensors to monitor how the structures respond to environmental stress, and LACMA conservators use that data to develop mortar mixtures for repairs.
Visiting the Towers
The Watts Towers Arts Center Campus is located at 1727 East 107th Street in Los Angeles. Guided tours run Thursday through Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The on-site galleries, which feature rotating exhibitions by local and international artists, are open Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. You can walk around the exterior of the towers and view them through the perimeter fence at any time, but getting up close to the mosaics requires joining a guided tour.
The surrounding neighborhood has its own significance. Watts became internationally known after the 1965 civil unrest, and the towers have since served as a symbol of creativity and resilience for the community. The arts center hosts workshops, lectures, and cultural programming year-round, making the site more than a monument. It functions much the way Rodia intended when he named it “Our Place.”