Art and Architecture | Los Angeles Conservancy
Home Savings and Loan, Hollywood (Millard Sheets, 1968). Photo by Larry Underhill

Architecture of the late twentieth century often reflected the influence of the contemporary art of its time.

Architects and artists inspired each other and collaborated together, from designers such as Millard Sheets integrating art into his civic architecture and Home Savings and Loan branches, to architects like Frank Gehry, who in 1976 said, “My approach to architecture is different. I search out the work of artists, and use art as a means of inspiration.”

As natural companions, architecture and art often go hand in hand in the Modern architecture of Greater Los Angeles.

Photo by Gary Leonard/Los Angeles Public Library

777 Tower

Cesar Pelli
One of downtown's most graceful high-rise office buildings, the 777 Tower designed by Cesar Pelli effortlessly pierces the downtown skyline with subtle articulation and detail.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Air and Space Gallery, California Science Center

Frank Gehry
Architect Frank Gehry's first major public work celebrates California's history in the aviation and aerospace industries with an ingenious use of space and light, an allusion to the challenges of aerospace design.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Al Struckus House

Bruce Goff
Embodying architect Bruce Goff's philosophy of organic architecture, which held that each design should be as unique as its owner, the building undeniably reflects the architect's "gonzo flair."
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Ambassador College

Garrett Eckbo
DMJM
Peter Holdstock
A wide array of diverse architectural styles dating from 1905 to the 1970s, all the buildings make sense together thanks to a cohesive master plan and strong landscape design.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

ArtCenter College of Design

Craig Ellwood Associates
Often described as designer Craig Ellwood's swansong, the ArtCenter bridge, an economical solution to the school's hilly canyon site, was one of the final commissions for his firm.
Glendale Federal Savings, Beverly Hills
Photo by Lynne Tucker

Bank of America, Beverly Hills

Langdon & Wilson
Visitors looking up from the base of the Glendale Federal Savings Building see light streaming through the fifty-two rainbow-patterned glass of a dalle da verre cornice, cantilevered nine-and-a-half feet from the top of the ten-story building.
Photo courtesy www.you-are-here.com

Braille Institute of America

William L. Pereira & Associates
To address the unique challenge of designing a building for people who would experience a building without ever seeing it, architects Yohannan and Miranda began their process by wearing blindfolds for two weeks.
Brunswick Sands Bowl interior
Photo by Jessica Hodgdon/L.A. Conservancy

Brunswick Sands Bowl

Architect Unknown
The Sands Bowl's Googie-esque, Egyptian-themed design is a great example of a bowling center in the "California style," with cocktail lounge, sunken dining room, and exotic decor.
Photo by Jessica Hodgdon/L.A. Conservancy

Bunker Hill Steps

Lawrence Halprin
The ties between downtown L.A. and its Bunker Hill origins have been tenuous at best. The Bunker Hill Steps, built in 1989, aimed to remedy that.
Photo by Michael Locke

Burbank City Hall

Allen Lutzi
An icon of the Late Moderne style, Burbank City Hall epitomizes the best of civic architecture in terms of aesthetics as well as function and remains a point of pride for the City of Burbank.
Burbank Water and Power
Photo by Jessica Hodgdon/L.A. Conservancy

Burbank Water and Power

Daniel Elliott
An example of the Late Moderne style, the Burbank Water and Power headquarters recently became the first sustainable utility campus in California by combining the original industrial facilities with sustainable technologies.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Frank Gehry
A testament to Frank Gehry's passion for utilitarian material, The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is dominated by chain link used to create a set of three-dimensional objects extending vertically and obliquely from the center of the complex.
California Institute of the Arts
Photo by Scott Groller, copyright CalArts 2006

California Institute of the Arts

Ladd & Kelsey
A Late Modern-style complex designed to facilitate open communication between all forms of creative arts, nestled into a landscape of rolling hills and mature eucalyptus trees.
Cathay Bank
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Cathay Bank

Eugene Kinn Choy
Designed by the first Chinese American architect to join the AIA in Southern California, Cathay Bank merges New Formalism with traditional Chinese decorative elements.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Century City Medical Plaza

Cesar Pelli
DMJM
Anthony Lumsden
Architectually elegant, economical and eco-friendly decades before it was in vogue, the Century City Medical Plaza would serve as a benchmark for corporate architecture for years after its completion.

Pages

Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. - An Initiative of the Getty

Curating the City: Modern Architecture in L.A. is part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. This collaboration, initiated by the Getty, brings together seventeen cultural institutions from April through July 2013 for a wide-ranging look at the postwar built environment of the city as a whole, from its famous residential architecture to its vast freeway network, revealing the city’s development and ongoing impact in new ways. Major support for this project has been provided by the Getty Foundation. pacificstandardtimepresents.org.