I tried to make a photograph that captured the era in which the graceful building housing Balboa Park’s amazing botanical specimens was built. To do this, I picked out a distinctive section of wall near the building’s entrance, lined with rectangles and spheres. Using the bold, deep shadows cast by the mid-day sun, I photographed them from an angle that brought them together as a series of rhythmic patterns embodying the design of the 1930s. These details are only a tiny part of the vast structure, but to me, they best represented the building’s design origins.