Google Map of Swastika-Shaped Building

This Google map satellite pic of a swastika-shaped building on a US Navy base in Coronado, California, has been making its rounds on the internet.

According to some sources, the building is part of the training facilities for Navy Seals, and is perhaps their barracks. It's nicknamed "The Seals Lair".

Apparently, the building was constructed with no intention of promoting the swastika symbol, so it was completely unintentional.

I note that for its time period, the design of the building was really optimal for a number of reasons. Buildings constructed during that time were designed to allow best access for rooms to light and air, since air conditioning was uncommon. I bet the architect was really pleased with this layout, since it made great use of the site plot, while maximizing each barrack wing's window exposure. Also, the design included some courtyard greenspace between each of the wings, which is also very good for aesthetics and psychological wellbeing.

But, should the happenstance of increasing popularity of satellite imagery be a strong enough reason to reshape the building so that it will no longer have the swastika profile, as some people seem to think should be done? I don't think so.

Note Bene: This image is Geotagged. See my article about how flickr has added geotagging features.

I also mentioned this photo on my blog posting on How to use Flickr for Image Search Optimization.

9/26/2007: CNN has just reported that the Navy has taken so much flack on this that they're going to change the building's offensive shape by adding landscaping and other structures to the tune of over $600,000! Must be the first time that online maps have forced a complete building redesign! Check out my blog posting on how Google Maps forced the Navy to redesign the swastika building.

If you're interested in more of my writing on Technology, Mapping, Local Search and more, check out my articles at Search Engine Land: Chris Silver Smith.

9/11/2009: There's also a swastika-shaped building in Alabama, a nursing home, which the operators have attempted to change to remove the swastika shape, to little success so far.

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Comments

gattster says:

I looked into this a bit as well. I'm not sure what year the building was constructed, but the naval base was being built from around 1920 - 1970. All the street names around that building are WW2 themed. For example, "Guadalcanal" is a street one block over. This tells me that the building was constructed AFTER WW2.

If you zoom out and look to the southwest, there are 2 buildings that look like bombers flying towards the swastika. Supposedly, this symbolizes the allies bombing and destroying the swastika.
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

POONDOG [deleted] says:

I was just checking google earth out after i saw this photo.

I am gonna check it out again
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

Martin Jacobsen [deleted] says:

This ornamented gate was built for the electricity company in Oslo some time during the late twenties / early thirties. It's still there.

Despite being a rabid anti-racist I don't mind it being there any more than I mind the swastikas on old jewish and hindu tombstones...

It's important to remember what to resent; The politics themselves, not some graphic symbol.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

view-askew says:

The second largest newspaper in Norway has a link to your picture.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

physical says:

nazi symbolism ,intended or not, in a us military installation has a weird ring to it..
i mean ..the US is currently imposing their rule and domination on nations and peoples across the world at gunpoint and throu coertion( "you are either with us or against us"), like some regimes did not too long ago.
what really happend to the land of the free i loved?
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

Asbjorn2005 says:

The same norwegian newspaper, as mentioned above, has a followup acricle today, where a representative for the military base claims that the result of the layout of the buildings were discovered too late, and that they don't mean anything.
Posted 42 months ago. ( permalink )

catch_twenty_two says:

That is SOOO dark!
Posted 41 months ago. ( permalink )

catch_twenty_two says:

"The US Government is not a neo-Nazi organization" tee hee...
Posted 41 months ago. ( permalink )

Aiden Scott [deleted] says:

the swatskita is an indian symbol for peace or nature i think
Posted 40 months ago. ( permalink )

stone-ok says:

Refer to the link www.thepowerhour.com/news2/navy_response_lett er.htm to read the Dept of Navy's response to Dave VonKleist (Host of www.thepowerhour.com) who questioned them on the design. The building was designed in 1967-1969 - definitely POST WWII. I do not believe the Navy's response to its shape as an "oversight". The government is very thorough about anything and everything that it does or is done for them. The architect would have had to present a plot layout, and floor plans. These would have been drawn to resemble an overhead shot (or from the air).

As stated by Dave VonKleist, "Symbolism has been used throughout history to communicate intent and allegiance to those aware of their meanings. Adolf Hitler promoted a 'New World Order' and planned to implement it as his Third Reich came to power...What possible reason could there be for a building to have been constructed on a military base with this horrifying reminder of hate and genocide?"
Posted 37 months ago. ( permalink )

Steve Masiello says:

It's a shame that an ancient positive symbol is given such a negative reputation when used by a bad group. If you search the many pictures of the giant buddha in hong kong, you see the symbol on its chest although I think the nazi's changed its direction.

Cool picture. I love google sat shots.
Posted 32 months ago. ( permalink )

eatmynipple says:

OMG it's too funny to see this. I'm a web app programmer and was doing a job that entailed doing some google map for the silver strand (That's where this amphib base is). Anyway I saw this and showed to everyone I work with. Dumb ass architect.
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

Maxime Rousseau says:

Now, let people find penis-shaped buildings and laugh about it. Where the fuck are we going with this? The building has obvious architectural advantages, stop bitching about it.

Did you know that a pentagram is a satanic symbol? Well the Pentagon is acutally made in the shape of a pentagon. AHHH! FEAR!! 666, the devil is coming!

Symbols mean nothing unless they are worn by someone who makes something out of them, which is not currently the case. STFUKTHXBYE
Posted 31 months ago. ( permalink )

Nick_in_Atlanta says:

Find a aerial photo of the new Denver airport, just east of denver, and you'll see that the runways have the look of a swastika. Others say that the original drawings in the terminal building was of blonde, blue-eyed kids only and that they were later changed. It gets even more insane when you start reading that some kooks believe there are Nazis living underneath the main terminal building. It's almost too funny to believe. And the shape of the runways has to do with having mutiple parallel runways in all four directions.
Posted 30 months ago. ( permalink )

arthur_mosier says:

I am really sick and tired of the gaggle of idiotic malingerers who sit around waiting for the next thing to be offended by. Get a life already. My complaint is: Why the hell are mindless buffoons and terrorists able to get satellite reconnaissance of US military installations from Google Earth? We tap phones and kick down doors in the name of national security, so how does free access to a highly detailed photo of high security bases and operations not fall under the same protective umbrella? If anything, the Dept of Defense needs to edit Google Earth to pixilate out all such details. Right now, the Pentagon and every US missile base, sub base and air base are in full view of every islamic terrorist and idle drooling idiot to peruse.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

grllopez says:

According to my dictionary, this swastika shape is representative of the ancient symbol or ornament thought to mean good luck. The swastika with arms turning counter clockwise was the symbol of the Nazis.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Si1very says:

grlopez, actually I think you're off -- if you look up pics of swastikas, you'll see that the majority if not all Nazi swastikas are with the arms pointing clockwise, just as the Navy building shape is oriented.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

a.denk says:

Well to all that have ?s my family is German and still wears the swastika in ink. We support it proudly. The arms on this building are going the same way as the nazis and the way we also wear them!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Eureka2006 says:

The issue has been take a bit toooo far.
Why are people talking abour the building's over view?How does it matters?

As it is, if we talk of symbols, "Swastik" as per the Hindu beliefs, symbolises peace and victory , a result of concentrated positive energy.

If we closely observe, the nazi symbol is not swasthik but a figure in just the opposite direction as that of swasthik.

I say , this should end here itself, there by saving the money and utilizing it where the people actually wants it to be.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Yare says:

I really don't belive this architecture has to anything with old india, budhism or unintentional mistake. It is built in 1960's. We all know what happened with many nazi officers after WW2.

From wikipedia:
"As World War II drew to a close, U.S., U.K. and S.U. military and scientific crews raced to capture technology and trained personnel from the German rocket program installation at Peenemünde. The United Kingdom and the Soviet Union had some success, but the United States arguably benefited most, taking a large number of German rocket scientists – many of them members of the Nazi Party, including von Braun – from Germany to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip."

In Christopher Simpson's book, "The Splendid Blonde Beast," the author wrote about George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush were powerful financial supporters of Adolf Hitler.

Walker was president of Union Banking Corporation, a firm that traded with Germany and helped German industrialists consolidate Hitler's political power. Simpson says Union Banking became a Nazi money-laundering machine.

Investigative reporter Christopher Simpson says in "Blowback" that after World War II, Nazi ©migr©s were given CIA subsidies to build a far-right-wing power base in the U. S. These Nazis assumed prominent positions in the Republican Party's "ethnic outreach committees." Simpson documents the fact that these Nazis did not come to America as individuals but as part of organized groups with fascist political agendas. The Nazi agenda did not die along with Adolf Hitler. It moved to America (or a part of it did) and joined the far right of the Republican Party.

Simpson shows how the State Department and the CIA put high-ranking Nazis on the intelligence payroll "for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare," among other purposes. The most important Nazi employed by the U.S. was Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's most senior eastern front military intelligence officer. After Germany's defeat became certain, Gehlen offered the U. S. certain concessions in exchange for his own protection. Gehlen promoted hyped up cold war propaganda on behalf of the political right in this country, and helped shape U.S. perceptions of the cold war.

Journalist Russ Bellant ("Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party") shows that Laszlo Pasztor, a convicted Nazi war collaborator, built the Republican ©migr© network. Pasztor, who served as adviser to Republican Paul Weyrich, belonged to the Hungarian Arrow Cross, a group that helped liquidate Hungary's Jews. Pasztor was founding chairman of the Republican Heritage Groups Council.

Two months before the November 1988 presidential election, a small newspaper, Washington Jewish Week, disclosed that a coalition for the Bush campaign included a number of outspoken Nazis and anti-Semites. The article prompted six leaders of Bush's coalition to resign.

According to Russ Bellant, Nazi collaborators involved in the Republican Party included:

(1) Radi Slavoff, GOP Heritage Council's executive director, and head of "Bulgarians for Bush." Slavoff was a member of a Bulgarian fascist group, and he put together an event in Washington honoring Holocaust denier, Austin App.

(2) Florian Galdau, director of GOP outreach efforts among Romanians, and head of "Romanians for Bush." Galdau was once an Iron Guard recruiter, and he defended convicted Nazi war criminal Valerian Trifa.

(3) Nicholas Nazarenko, leader of a Cossack GOP ethnic unit. Nazarenko was an ex-Waffen SS officer.

(4) Method Balco, GOP activist. Balco organized yearly memorials for a Nazi puppet regime.

(5) Walter Melianovich, head of the GOP's Byelorussian unit. Melianovich worked closely with many Nazi groups.

(6) Bohdan Fedorak, leader of "Ukranians for Bush." Fedorak headed a Nazi group involved in anti-Jewish wartime pogroms.

In 2001, author Edwin Black published IBM and the Holocaust (ISBN 0-609-80899-0), a book that documented how IBM's New York headquarters and CEO Thomas J. Watson acted through its overseas subsidiaries to provide the Third Reich with punch card machines that could help the Nazis to track down the European Jewry (especially in newly conquered territory). The book quotes extensively from numerous IBM and government memos and letters that describe how IBM in New York, IBM's Geneva office and Dehomag, its German subsidiary, were intimately involved in supporting Nazi oppression. The book also includes IBM's internal reports that admit that these machines made the Nazis much more efficient in their efforts.

Just Google for u.s. - nazi connections, and you'll find much much more.

Americans, open your eyes. It's time.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

silverbelly says:

jesus...we all condemn anything that the nazi's did, or any other racist group does today, but that doesn't mean we need to whitewash the entire planet.

recognizing these symbols for what they are (symbols) encourages dialogue, but just walking about rearranging the furniture, doesn't make the world any better or change history.

next on the news at 5...we are making the eiffel tower into a square because alex eiffel built it with the intent to have it as a phallus.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Freundschaftsberg says:

People talk of a new world order here ????

WoW !!!!!!!!!

Are You All Actually Blind ........

The USSR was the greatest Evil on the planet and the USA actually made an Alliance with them..

Remember the last words of the greatest American Ever..

General George Patton..
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

jaggok114 says:

If it weren't for Google Maps, no one would have know anything about this.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

b.cliton says:

Look up the USS Liberty (GTR-5) incident. That happened in 1967. Maybe that's why the shape was chosen. Those US sailors had their own holocaust at the expense of the American public and the jewish defense force. That one was swept under the rug by the US media. Sad but true, but they should put the Liberty's insignia on the roof, not tear it down. BTW, the Swastika is an ancient Bhuddist symbol and is highly revered by billions of people.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

b.cliton says:

I'm a Jew, you idiot. Its idiotic for a jew to be anti semitic.Thats like butt poking yourself in the arse. Why don't you ask one of the survivors about the supposed accident. There was no accident. The Liberty discovered Israel's Unprovoked attack on the Egyptians. The crew was considered expendible and they were marked for extermination because they simply knew too much. Luckily, some survived to bear witness to the truth. There is an active war crimes case being brought against the Jewish state on account of this. Are you a friend of Jonothan Pollard?? Hmmm. Maybe You should have died in the holocaust, Morgan, you hippocrate. You must not be American. Maybe you should have been an abortion. Your lies and misinformation make CBS look like an Angel. By the way, your slip is showing.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Si1very says:

Both of you stop the name-calling and take the argument off my photo page -- you can do this via emal. I'm considering deletion of your comments as it is....
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

Fern154 says:

I LIVED IN THAT BUILDING FOR TWO YEARS, from 1989 to 1991, it is not part of SEAL Training.
The story I was told was, it was built by German POW's during WWII. I didn't know it was shaped like that until someone showed me a photo of it from the air, its quite big, and you don't realize how it's shaped from the ground easily.
Posted 26 months ago. ( permalink )

geotrotter says:

Here is other "Swastikas" on Google Earth
Posted 25 months ago. ( permalink )

Martin - enso says:

wow!
Posted 22 months ago. ( permalink )

sashasue says:

Interesting array of comments here.

Special thanks to Yare for his very informative and illuminating post; I will definitely check out Simpson and some of the other sources mentioned...
Posted 21 months ago. ( permalink )

wraith808 says:

So... we waste 600,000 dollars to landscape something you can't even see unless you're looking at satellite imagery just to be pc? There's something wrong with that picture...
Posted 18 months ago. ( permalink )

R-Rated Birdman of Hell Paso says:

Goofy conspiracy theories aside, here is an interesting buidling.
Shaffer hotel in Mountainair, NM
Posted 16 months ago. ( permalink )

© Tim Kingfisher (1079 emails & 72 pdfs to read) says:

no symbol is inherently negative, it's who's using it and for what... this is a native american symbol for the sun long before hitler turned it eastward... but given american history and all of its dirt, I'd say this symbol/building is occult. We all know where the mad german scientists landed a job after the war.
Posted 16 months ago. ( permalink )

LamasLikeToast [deleted] says:

lol what are the chances?
Posted 16 months ago. ( permalink )

Si1very says:

Question du jour: What's the most common geocode format used in online mapping systems?
Posted 13 months ago. ( permalink )

Shaffttt says:

This is the most disturbing structure I have seen, I wonder what was in the archetect's mind when he was designing it. I do not agree with the comment that it was unintentional, because the designer of the building looks at the structure from different angle, one thing I can say about it there are other people who approved it even after realizing the structure's apperance. I think its time to fax Osama Bin Laden that there is a structure in Sandiego we would like to see gone.

What do ya think?
Posted 13 months ago. ( permalink )

l[ я ]l says:

hetlar >>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>???
Posted 13 months ago. ( permalink )

alysandra says:

hmm... Seriously i find the swastika disturbing when I first saw it, but after that when I saw the subsequent buildings of bombers flying towards that building, I kind of found it amusing...
Posted 11 months ago. ( permalink )

Neko-Ninja says:

haha,i found this picture with "FEIL" written on the side xD
Posted 9 months ago. ( permalink )

Brian Rathert says:

It is beyond ridiculous that we are even entertaining the thought of changing this building. It's a testament to the warped priorities of our culture and the tremendous power wielded by certain elites, who seem to never tire of digging scabs off wounds in order to profit from them.
Posted 9 months ago. ( permalink )

randomonix says:

Yikes!
--
Found in a search. (?)
Posted 8 months ago. ( permalink )

Sgana says:

...i wish the architect made a mistake...
Posted 8 months ago. ( permalink )

roman_kruiz says:

It is a very nice picture, may I use it at my blog
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

roman_kruiz says:

It is a very nice picture, may I use it at my blog
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

Haroldo Kennedy says:

Muito surreal e ambíguo!
Posted 5 months ago. ( permalink )

Abdessamad says:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Google Maps and Earth, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

See it On Google Maps
mapsandearth.blogspot.com/2009/08/google-map- of-swastika-...
Posted 3 months ago. ( permalink )

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Google Map of Swastika-Shaped Building

Comments

gattster says:

POONDOG [deleted] says:

Martin Jacobsen [deleted] says:

view-askew says:

physical says:

Asbjorn2005 says:

catch_twenty_two says:

catch_twenty_two says:

Aiden Scott [deleted] says:

stone-ok says:

Steve Masiello says:

eatmynipple says:

Maxime Rousseau says:

Nick_in_Atlanta says:

arthur_mosier says:

grllopez says:

Si1very says:

a.denk says:

Eureka2006 says:

Yare says:

silverbelly says:

Freundschaftsberg says:

jaggok114 says:

b.cliton says:

b.cliton says:

Si1very says:

Fern154 says:

geotrotter says:

Martin - enso says:

sashasue says:

wraith808 says:

R-Rated Birdman of Hell Paso says:

© Tim Kingfisher (1079 emails & 72 pdfs to read) says:

LamasLikeToast [deleted] says:

Si1very says:

Shaffttt says:

l[ я ]l says:

alysandra says:

Neko-Ninja says:

Brian Rathert says:

randomonix says:

Sgana says:

roman_kruiz says:

roman_kruiz says:

Haroldo Kennedy says:

Abdessamad says:

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