The Watts Towers , Towers of Simon Rodia , or Nuestro Pueblo [ 5 ] "our town" in Spanish are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artist's original residential property in Watts, Los Angeles , California, United States.
The entire site of towers, structures, sculptures, pavement, and walls were designed and built solely by Sabato "Simon" or "Sam" Rodia or to , [ 6 ] an Italian immigrant construction worker and tile mason, over a period of 33 years from to The tallest of the towers is He then moved to Seattle, Washington , where he married Lucia Ucci in They soon moved to Oakland , where Rodia's three children were born.
Following his divorce around , he moved to Long Beach and worked in construction and other odd jobs before finally settling in Watts in There has been some question as to what Rodia was called during his lifetime; some sources have cited that his birth name was "Sabatino" and it is disputed as to whether he was called "Simon" during his lifetime.
It is widely known and accepted that he was referred to as "Sam" by close friends. He appears as Samuel Rodia and still living in Oakland in the U. Census, but by the time of the U. Census, he had already become Sam Rodia. His surname has also been misspelled as "Rodella" or "Rodilla". The sculptures' armatures are constructed from steel rebar and Rodia's own concoction of a type of concrete, wrapped with wire mesh. The main supports are embedded with pieces of porcelain , tile, and glass.
They are decorated with found objects , including bottles, ceramic tiles, seashells , figurines, mirrors , and other items. Rodia called the Towers "Nuestro Pueblo" "our town" in Spanish. He built them with no special equipment or predetermined design, working alone with hand tools.
