An abstract cubist rainbow greets passerby's along Cabrillo Blvd at the beach. Just across from the beautiful rotunda of Fess Parker's Doubletree Resort and a few steps from the hundreds of palm trees and Chase Palm Park, this "Chromatic Gate" was designed by the renowned artist Herbert Bayer in 1975, and was given to the city by his widow in 1991.

Like most public art, the sculpture has been provocative and criticized as not being "Spanish" enough for Santa Barbara, but the design actually derives from similar mysterious structures that Bayer saw in empty desert spaces in Morrocco, and thus has cultural roots as old as Moorish Spain.


Photo courtesy of Dan Heller Photography