Working over three decades, Simon Rodia made what is considered to be the largest structure erected by a single person. The work is now known as the Watts Towers for its placement in the Watts neighborhood in southern Los Angeles. The complex features seventeen main interconnected structures, including three central soaring spires that stand around a hundred feet tall, as well as gardens, a gazebo, benches, and birdbaths. Rodia labored alone for the years he spent on the project, using no scaffolding, armature, bolts, or rivets. Instead, he bent steel beams into the desired shapes, then wrapped them with wire and mesh that was covered with mortar. While it was still wet, he adorned the material with a mosaic of glass bottles, shells, shards of crockery, broken mirrors, and other objects he could salvage from the city streets. He also made impressions in the mortar with objects such as corn cobs, stalks of wheat, car parts, and his own simple work tools.
Much is murky about Rodia’s biography. His first name appears as Sabato, Sabatino, Sam, and Samuel, and his last name as Rodilla. He was born in the Campania region of Italy, with his year of birth cited around 1880, although the exact date is in dispute. He immigrated to the United States as a teenager and worked in construction and as a tile setter. In 1921, he began his monumental undertaking on a triangular lot that included his home. He would claim as inspiration great Italian visionaries such as Galileo, although he was mostly taciturn about what compelled him, giving different answers and conflicting information in interviews. Amidst the modest homes in the surrounding community, his gargantuan assemblage stood out as it rose higher and became more elaborate, and the diminutive figure of Rodia could be seen climbing its lattices of mortar and metal, carrying a trowel and bucket as he worked into the night.
In 1954, Rodia deeded the property to a neighbor and left the site for good, never returning before his death in 1965 in Martinez, California. The Watts Towers were nearly lost when the city condemned them in the mid-1950s; artists and advocates rallied to save them from destruction. The site is now on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Landmark preserved as part of Simon Rodia State Historic Park.
Allison C. Meier, 2025
Text written as part of “Rethinking Biography,” an initiative supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
