UTILITAS ! FIRMITAS ! VENUSTAS Northern California Chapter Society of Architectural Historians Volume 21, Number 1 The Newsletter Spring 2018 NCCSAH Goes to the Southland: New & Historic Architecture Downtown Los Angeles “Yes, Virginia, there is a downtown Los Angeles. .” David Gebhard and Robert Winter, Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide (1994) The NCCSAH board has planned a very excit- ing and unique tour for spring, 2018. The pro- gram, set for May 26-27, will sample both re- cent architecture and historic buildings in Downtown Los Angeles, all of national signifi- cance. Because all the sites are within walking distance—five or six blocks, mostly flat—the tour will not involve carpooling or a bus. The Tour Itinerary Saturday May 26 – The Cultural District: Significant Recent Architecture Disney Hall, Los Angeles. Photo: Ward Hill The “Cultural District” along Grand Avenue includes many of the most significant recent works of architecture in the United States (if not the world). Saturday will include guided tours of Walt Disney Hall, The Broad (mu- seum of contemporary art) and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Disney Hall, completed 2003, is widely regarded as one of the greatest modern concert halls in the world, both acoustically and architecturally. It is visually dazzling. Philip Johnson anointed its architect, Frank Gehry, as “the greatest architect we have today”. The interior is not available for touring during the performance sea- son. However, we can attend a 2 PM concert of the LA Philharmonic conducted by their charismatic music di- rector Gustavo Dudamel, in a program of works by Robert Schumann. Our ticket price reflects a substantial group discount. ––continued on next page Square, directly across from the Biltmore, for a cus- tomized version of the Conservancy’s Historic Downtown Tour. This may include Pershing Square, the PacMutual Building, and the exterior of CalEdison. A visit to the Central Library (Bertram Goodhue, 1926) will include review of the issue that led to formation of the LA Conservancy, in 1978: the fight to save this historic Spanish Colonial Revival building. The Central Library is the subject of two recent books, Los Angeles Central Library: A History of its Art and Architecture and The Los Angeles Central Library: An Architectural Icon, by SAH President Ken Breisch. A review of both books in the Decem- ber, 2017 JSAH, states, “[T]he building deserves to Above: The Broad, Los Angeles. Photo: Jane Shabaker be recognized as one of the most significant Ameri- Below: Central LIbrary rotunda. Photo: Central Library website can buildings of the twentieth century.” A remarkable The Broad (Diller, Scofidio & Renfro, 2015; MacAr- collaboration of muralists, mosaic artists and sculp- thur Genius Award recipient Elizabeth Diller, princi- tors created the library interior. pal designer), recognized as one of the most inven- tive and innovative art museum designs of recent The tour route then takes us up Bunker Hill, across decades, houses the famous contemporary art col- Wells Fargo Center and on to California Plaza, of- lection of philanthropist Eli Broad. fering views up Grand Avenue to the Broad and Disney Hall. A ride down the restored Angels Flight Los Angeles Cathedral, completed in 2002, was funicular brings us to the lively Grand Central Mar- designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning Spanish ar- ket, and through the market to the Bradbury Build- chitect Juan Rafael Moneo. Wall Street Journal ar- ing, which Reyner Banham, English architectural chitecture critic David Littlejohn described the build- historian and critic, named one of the greatest 19th ing as having “the most impressive large interior century commercial buildings in the world. The park, space in Los Angeles.” The Catholic Archdiocese behind the Bradbury, honors the life of Biddy Ma- will provide a tour of the cathedral (including the son, a former slave, who became a successful real mausoleum with its 14 beautiful stained glass win- estate investor and was a founding member of the dows made in Munich in the 1920s), and a short first Black church in Los Angeles. She gave the land concert on the pipe organ, one of the largest in the on which the church (not extant) was built, now country. Lunch in the cathedral courtyard will follow. Biddy Mason Park. Members opting for the We return to the Grand concert at the Disney pro- Central Market for a lunch ceed to the hall for the 2 break (11:30 - 12:30). Af- pm start of the program. ter a brief respite, at 1:30, Biltmore docents will take Sunday, May 27: The us on a 90-minute tour of Great Landmarks of the hotel. We then return Historic Downtown LA to the Central Library for a tour hosted by library do- On Sunday, LA Conser- cents, ending about 4:45. vancy docents will meet our group, at 9:30 a.m., at See page 11 for registration information. the center of Pershing 2!!!!!!!!!!!! NCCSAH Los Angeles and San Francisco: A Tale of Two Cities At the start of the Ameri- Yankees; rather, the can period in California, Spanish-speaking cul- San Francisco and Los ture held its own.” Angeles stood pretty much on an equal foot- “In the decade of the ing. Los Angeles was 1870s,” Starr continues, the center of a thriving “it became an American rancho economy. San city. Adobe gave way to Francisco enjoyed the brick and wood, candles advantage of one of the and kerosene to gas. great deep water har- The streets were paved bors of the world, but and tracks laid for horse- with little return, as yet, drawn streetcars. Police on that asset. and fire departments were organized on It was the happen- a permanent basis stance of the dis- and a lending li- covery of gold, in brary was estab- 1848, and the sub- lished. A city hall sequent rush to was built, together mine the Sierra with a train station, foothills that cata- a county hospital, pulted San Fran- an opera house, cisco (“the instant and a theater seat- city”) ahead as the ing four hundred. leading city in Cali- In 1878, the Meth- fornia, indeed in the entire West. Reinforced with odist Church founded the University of Southern Cali- the flow of tremendous wealth from Nevada silver fornia.” (Inventing the Dream: California Through the mines in the 1870s, it would hold that position into Progressive Era, (1985) the early 20th century. L.A. Leaps Ahead Los Angeles, on the other hand, was willed onto Other advances marked the growth of Los Angeles in the path to greatness by the unrelenting boosterism the decades that followed. In 1892, the first oil well of its leading citizens, beginning in the 1870s. The came in, and by 1900, an oil rush had contributed to opening of transcontinental rail links, in 1876 and in significant population growth, the city reaching 1885, drew mostly midwesterners to Los Angeles, 102,479 people. In the first decade of the 20th cen- many of them attracted by the healthy climate ad- tury, Los Angeles acquired the port at San Pedro, saw vertised widely. By the 1880 census, the population creation of what Sir Peter Hall (Cities in Civilization, had nearly doubled. 1998) calls “the most extensive light rail system in the world”, and by 1913 tapped into the Owens Valley to Of Los Angeles, Kevin Starr wrote, “Invaded in secure water for a growing metropolis. By the 1920s, 1846, annexed in 1848, taken into the Union in Hollywood had become the movie capital of the world, 1850: Southern California was never Americanized. with twenty studios producing some 800 films a year. No Gold Rush overwhelmed the Southland with The population race was over. In the 1920 census, Top photo: Skyline of Los Angeles. The Jon B. Lovelace Los Angeles came in at 576,673; San Francisco, Collection of California Photographs in Carol M. 506,676. Yet the bay city continued to hold its own as Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress. Bottom: San the West’s financial center and a corporate headquar- Francisco skyline from Treasure Island. Don Andreini NCCSAH!!!!! 3 ters city, as well as a kind of western U.S. govern- sprawl began long before then, according to Peter ment capital, with many federal agencies having Hall, in the first decade of the 20th century, because regional offices in the city. Reflecting this status, of the creation of the Pacific Electric transit system, the 1920s saw construction of many significant which operated over 1,000 miles of track connecting high-rise buildings, including the Russ Building, the communities of the Los Angeles basin. Population and offices for Pacific Telephone, Pacific Gas & growth followed the transit lines; the freeways accel- Electric, Stan- erated the process, especially after the post-World dard Oil of War II era saw the dismantling of the transit network. California, The city is now in the midst of a multi-decade, multi- Shell Oil, and billion dollar effort to recreate that network, and more. Matson Navi- gation. The characterization of Los Angeles as “seventy-two suburbs in search of a city”, variously attributed to Los Angeles, Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, and Aldous Huxley, on the other would more accurately be restated as, a city in search hand, had a of seventy-two suburbs. Los Angeles grew by a vigor- 150-foot height ous campaign of annexation of suburban communities. limit on build- ings until vot- The city of Los Angeles remained largely within its ers repealed original 28 square-mile land grant until the 1890s, the restriction when annexations began. By 1910, the city’s area had in 1956. Until reached 90 square miles; in 1915, another 170 s.m.