Buildings tell history

The phases of Los Angeles can be seen through the city's architecture.

The story of downtown Los Angeles is a patchwork design created by the residents and visitors of the city. In Bunker Hill and the Financial District specifically, that story of the city is told through the architecture of some of area’s most iconic buildings.

“Architecture is a three dimensional representation of history,” said Laura Massino of Architecture Tours L.A. 100 years ago Bunker Hill would have looked completely different. Atop the hill where the Walt Disney Concert Hall now sits would have been beautiful, Victorian-style homes. In the 1950s and 1960s the Victorian-style buildings were either demolished or removed from the hill. Some of these buildings were moved to local preservation sites, such as the Heritage Square Museum in Pasadena. While those buildings are no longer there, traces of the area’s former days is seen in some of buildings that still remain.

After the completion of the Continental Building, located Fourth and Spring St. in 1904, the city of Los Angeles put a height restriction in place for the buildings in downtown L.A. Buildings could not be taller than 150 ft.

Residents of Los Angeles were fearful that their beloved city would become, New York City. The residents were “so scared that L.A. was going to become a city of traffic, density, and overpopulation,” said Neel Sodha, owner of Downtown LA Walking Tours.

The architects of this time loved the height restriction because it finally gave them the opportunity to focus on the architectural design of the buildings. “They did not have to try to race to the top like the cities of Chicago and Detroit were doing,” said Sodha.

Architects in other large, metropolitan cities were focused on how they could build a building. While the height restriction meant more focus could be given to design details, downtown L.A.’s skyline suffered because the buildings became very short and stubby.

The Continental Building became a template for the buildings in downtown Los Angeles, up until the year 1956 when the height restriction was finally lifted. It was one of the city’s first skyscrapers and it represented Today, the architecture of the Financial District and Bunker Hill can be characterized into two different phases: the Financial District represents L.A.’s history before World War II and during the height restriction.

The architecture of Bunker Hill represents post World War II Los Angeles and the raising of the height restriction. It was during the 1920s that the city of L.A. had its largest boom period. Taking a page from the Continental Building architects looked to Europe for their inspiration.

For L.A. at this time, “looking to Europe was thought to be in good taste,” said Massino. It was a sign that wealthy residents were traveling and experiencing all the cultures the world had to offer.

Italian Renaissance was the popular architecture style of the day and many of the buildings in the Financial District are based on that style. 75 percent of the buildings from the 1920s still remain on 7th St according to Sodha.

These buildings use, the red brick, columns, arches and terra-cotta that is seen throughout the Italian Renaissance architecture found in the Financial District.

Fine Arts Building

The building that best represents this time period is the Fine Arts Building. It was constructed in 1927 and at the time considered to be one of the greatest pieces of architecture ever built in L.A.

Designed by Albert Raymond Walker and Percy Augustus Eisen in the Romanesque Revival style, the building used local craftsman for many of the exterior features including terra-cotta from the San Gabriel Valley.

The building is designed to mimic a Renaissance palace. The architects used arches and twisted columns to decorate the exterior. They also included representations of gargoyles, also made of local terra-cotta.

The inside of the Fine Arts Building is just as grand as the outside, the designers used bronze, mosaic tiles and terra-cotta. In the middle of the lobby is a shallow pool with sculptures by Burt Johnson. The interior looks like a medieval catholic church in Italy.

When the Fine Arts Building first opened up it was considered to be an artist colony. It housed artisans, architects and craftsmen, but as the years went on it transitioned into an office building.

The Fine Arts Building is an illustration of the mindset of the L.A. residents of the time period, it illustrates the opulence of the residents in the area, and their wish to create a European city out west.

Millennium Biltmore Hotel Along with the Fine Arts Building, the Millennium Biltmore Hotel showcased the wealth and growth L.A. was experiencing during the 1920s.

Built in 1923 and designed by the architecture firm Schultze & Weaver, when it was completed it was considered to be the “largest hotel west of Chicago,” said Sodha.

The hotel uses many different styles including Italian Renaissance, and European Beaux-Arts. The red brick which typical of L.A. buildings of the 1920s, makes up the exterior frame of the hotel. The archways and columns in the front of the building also draw from the Italian Renaissance style.

The Interior of the hotel is decorated with European inspired frescoes and murals. Sculptures also decorate the interior, depicting Spanish royalty and explorers like Christopher Columbus.

The Central Library

The Central Library symbolized the start of a transition of Los Angeles, designed by architect Bertram Goodhue in 1926, the building was a symbol of the value of learning and reading to the city.

It is one of the earliest examples of the Art Deco style in L.A., which was very clean and simplistic. The simple exterior serves as a simpler style, backdrop for the beautiful mosaics and sculptures that decorate the building.

Goodhue, loved symbolism and the theme of the Central Library was the “light of learning.” The pyramid at the top of the library was split into two worlds: the spiritual world, which was the pyramid itself and the material world represented by its square base of the pyramid. Goodhue wanted visitors of the library to move from the material world up to the spiritual world through knowledge and reading.

The rotunda of the Central Library looks like a Byzantine church, and the murals painted on the walls of the rotunda “illustrate the opening of southern California,” said Diana Rosen, a library docent and tour guide. The artist Dean Cronwell went to England to study mural painting, and each mural was painted on Belgian linen when they went up in 1933.

The building of the central library represented the “commitment by the founding families of Los Angeles," to make something out of their city, said Rosen. This commitment could only be possible with an educated community. It was during this time before World War II that Bunker Hill and the Financial District were coming into their own. In the 1920s L.A. was still a very young city, but there was a strong commitment to the arts, culture, and education and that is seen in the buildings constructed during this time period.

The Modern

After World War II “L.A. started to become the dominant city of California, from a creative, cultural, and financial point of view,” said Laura Massino. This confidence and optimism of the city is in the architecture of the post-war era.

L.A. was no longer looking toward Europe for its inspiration, it was now looking towards the future. This period of architecture continues today, it was during this time that architects were testing the testing the limits of the materials and technology available to them at that time. It was during this time that L.A.’s restoration renaissance began. The old buildings of the 1920s like the Fine Arts Building and the Central Library.

Wells Fargo Center

Completed in 1987 and built by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, represented the movement away from typical gray and white corporate buildings. The center consists of three towers each shaped like parallelograms.

Drawing on inspiration from the use of red bricks and terra-cotta of the 1920s the center's exterior is made of reddish-brown granite. The Wells Fargo Center is unique because the windows of the buildings create a mirror effect. The reflection of the modern skyline of Bunker Hill is seen in the three buildings.

The Wells Fargo Center is also in a “master planned area, which is protected by a 99 year lease,” said Neel Sodha of Downtown L.A. Walking Tours.

Because of this lease there is no zoning in this area, and to start a project it, one must go through the L.A.’s city council. No zoning and the need of city council approval mean that any building project in this area must keep to the modern, futuristic theme of Bunker Hill Today.

Walt Disney Concert Hall

The Walt Disney Concert Hall embodies the modern Bunker Hill and of the future of L.A. Designed by Frank O. Ghery and completed in 2003, construction of the hall pushed the limits of the architecture of the day. The design of the building created on Catia software, which is normally used to design aircraft.

“The building has a 14,000 piece structural steel skeleton, and the exterior is made of 6,400 stainless steel and 3,000 polished steel panels, ” from Massino’s book “Architecture Tours L.A. Guidebook.”

The curved form of the building couldn’t be done in pre World War II L.A. It is a building designed the intentional purpose of not only being a place of music, but also a piece of art for the new Los Angeles, and it reflects the love arts that the city had during the 1920s.

Other important buildings to the Financial District and Bunker Hill.