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2011 PRESERVATION AWARDS Media Award:
Winner of three Golden Globes and four Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series, AMC’s Mad Men is far more than a TV show. The period drama chronicling the men and women of Madison Avenue advertising is a pop culture phenomenon that has fueled an explosion of interest in all things 1960s, including architecture.
Its timing couldn’t have been better. In 2009, the show had been on the air for two years, and the sixties craze was in full swing, inspiring everything from high fashion and design to Barbie dolls and Sesame Street. In the fall of 2009, the Conservancy launched The Sixties Turn 50. This ten-month educational program sought to raise awareness of Greater L.A.’s legacy of 1960s architecture, which began turning 50 years old in 2010. Needless to say, we found a receptive audience. Though set in New York, Mad Men is produced in Los Angeles and has used local midcentury sites as filming locations. The show wove historic preservation into a Season 3 storyline about Madison Square Garden, as one of the admen protested the demolition of the iconic Penn Station.
Creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner has gone even further in supporting historic preservation. He hosted opening night of last year’s Last Remaining Seats series and spoke out in support of our efforts to preserve La Villa Basque restaurant, a 1960 hidden gem in Vernon. Mad Men had filmed key scenes in Season 4 episode “The Suitcase” at the restaurant because of its pristine condition. When new management began removing original elements of the restaurant in a plan to “make it more Mad Men,” Mr. Weiner urged them to keep La Villa Basque intact. For catapulting 1960s culture into the mainstream, showcasing Los Angeles’ treasures of sixties architecture, and taking a stand on real-life preservation issues, the Conservancy is proud to honor Mad Men and Matthew Weiner with its 2011 Media Award. Learn More
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Palace Theatre Built in 1911 as the third home of the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in Los Angeles, this theatre at Sixth St. and Broadway, a work of architect G. Albert Lansburgh, is now the oldest remaining original Orpheum theatre in the country. Loosely styled after a Florentine Renaissance palazzo, the facade of this brick and concrete structure features terra cotta flowers, fairies, and theatrical masks illustrating the spirit of entertainment. Photo courtesy of Tom Zimmerman |
