They are images of lions, not whole lions, just their head.

I wish people knew that things could be this pretty and be ecological too.

It is not that we are all seeing the same lion with the same body, we were given the face and we are meant to visualize the body ourselves.

To me it’s ornamental, they have fruit and vegetables coming out of their mouths. Pacified, almost.

In oriental culture, they are put in front of buildings as a symbol of protection.

City Hall is supposed to symbolize justice in a way, and the lion is a creature of nature. There is no flaw in nature, animals can kill each other and it’s ok. Survival, it’s natural, so that’s justice.

Strength of a public institution or strength of community.

They’re here to imply that the city is watching you.

Remind us that we need to do good things here.

The city has really old bones.

Strategic, to attract a certain kind of person to the city. “If you want a certain stable life just come to Pasadena, just look at our City Hall.”

Pasadena is the focal point of San Gabriel Valley, king of the jungle.

City employees should protect and serve the community.

Makes me think of a riddle, the snakes, the riddle of the snakes! in order to pass through between them, you need to know something.

I have been in this space a million times, I have only processed them as shields, I’ve never processed them as lions.

Superstition.

Architectural eclecticism that allows itself to incorporate lions to where the lions do make sense. They fit in to the architectural diversity of this site.

Somebody was a Leo! (Leos look out for other Leos)

It looks like they’re eating something, but it’s fruit, or vegetables, not animals. I’d say they are protective over aggressive, but somewhere in between, because they’re definitely devouring something.

It is an alien figure. there’s no lions in America.

They are part of the environment.

The more you look, the harder it is to figure it out. They are there to hold up the fruit.

They are captively free, confined in roles but have oversight.

Invokes to majesty and poverty of government, reminiscent of Florence renaissance.

It’s protecting the ideals of the city.

Lions represent strength and they represent a headship, they are the head of their pride.

Protection against any evil spirits from the fathers of the city from conducting the business that is important to Pasadena.

They are awake, they still have souls when they’re statues sometimes.

Integrity.

They are by definition, one of the most exotic animals of all of society, because of their power.

They look like they are in service to the community or their leader, they look like they are somebody’s lions.

There are pictures of what most city halls are inspired by and it’s four different spots. there are animals in all of those. Maybe it’s lions.

Top of the food chain in dominance.

It looks like the lions are in service presenting some sort of harvest or abundance.

The lion in Budhism means accomplishment.

Sound conveys a whole different message than visuals, than an image.

The city is fearful of the future.

The architecture is a mix of different styles from different countries, just like in America we are all mixed.

Like a “king’s palace”

They are exotic because they are African, and they are also exotic because they are an extraordinary thing, they are beautiful.

“We are the bosses in Pasadena.”

It’s this idea of creating a sublime nature within the city.

Traditional sign of sovereignty and power. Trying to imitate the cowardly lion on Wizard of Oz.

They are desensitized on the building.

Protective of their own, aggressive to everything else.

They are on many government buildings, affiliated with hierarchy. The highest before man.

Contrast between nature and construct of man.

Safety within the sanctuary

They are put in important places.

Fortitude of royalty, of strength, upholding the crest of the city and placing it as a symbol. subtly.

Does it mean anything to render a lion full-bodied versus a lion decapitated or partially shown to us?

It’s enforcing to understand the power of sound.

It is the faces of the building, rather than showing the entire lion which is separate from the building.

What’s a greater animal than a lion? It’s on top of the food chain of dominance. Maybe it is supposed to intimidate.

The felines, considering the size of their brains, I think they know more about life than we do.

To represent power, nobility, and two continents coming together.

Those things are just meant to ward off evil spirits and portray dominance.

In the architecture of the building, it’s all on display, but people don’t notice them. people are trained to move forward without taking notice of anything around them. It’s not an environmental thing, it’s a human problem.

Lions eat people and other animals, but they want to be healthy, they don’t want to eat more.

To bring awareness to all mass lion killings.

They are invisible until they bite your leg off.

Sometimes things that are invisible are important.

In China it means protection, and it might have been a symbol of social class in the past.

That’s the place where they take care of everyone and everything.

Noble by nature, but savage when they need to be.

Subtle definition of strength.

As a nature form of art conversing with the structure of man.

They’re iconic, so in that regard, they don’t have a geography of place.

Lions, Tigers… are millennia-old pitch models for power and authority fashioned out of religious figuration intended to exploit the animal instinct in humans for primal fear that, like the King of the Beasts, irrationally penetrates every sinew to create the conditions in which leaders subjugate instead of facilitate followers. Not unlike using scantily dressed women […]

A strong beast that can over power you and hurt you, if they want to. subconsciously.

Decoration, those fruits had to end up somewhere.

They seem to be strangely out of place, just not based in any kind of reality, for me.

Halls of power, representation of the people that work there.

They’re familiar but exotified by the environment.

Implicit implication of government serving the interest, reminder of those working there and those coming in.

For nature, environmental, not for the actual building.

Like gargoyles. The City of Pasadena wants to identify itself with something powerful and beautiful.

To imply venerability. Solid. Stable. Venerable.

They were important at the time but contemporaneously they’ve become lost because of technology.

They are weirdly familiar, I’ve see the same lions in other buildings before.

Inviting part of the pride in Pasadena, we watch over for one another.

I don’t think of animals as exotic, they might be endangered, but I think of them as sainted spirits, and when I think of them that way, they are familiar.

There is a legacy of colonialism, they weren’t lions in Europe but lions came to symbolize certain regal royalty, but lions are native to more than middle east and Africa, as well, there are Asian lions, there are lions in South America, but where there lions in Europe? I don’t even know. There’s this idea […]

It’s architecture, there aren’t many reasons necessarily.

Lion is the king of the jungle and city hall is the place where our leaders do their job.

They are treated exotically because of the details, the fruit.

They don’t have negative connotations until they eat your leg, but they don’t eat a lot of humans.

To bring together the feeling of wilderness in the middle of an urban.

Capture a sense of freedom.

They are a feline family. That’s what’s so interesting about cats, you see them asleep and they’re not. Sort of a cover up.