Big Business | Los Angeles Conservancy
Photo from Tom Gardner Collection/Conservancy archives

In the postwar world, Los Angeles became synonymous with several advanced industries, such as oil, aerospace, entertainment, and finance. New buildings rose to house the companies and industries that made the region a powerhouse.

Several major commercial architectural firms cornered the market on innovative design for the workplace, such as Welton Becket and Associates, William Pereira Associates, Charles Luckman Associates, and A. C. Martin. Collaboration with landscape architects such as Thomas Church and Garrett Eckbo yielded smartly integrated public landscapes and plazas. These monuments to big business have become icons of the region.

Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

100 Wilshire

DMJM
More than just an entertainer, Lawrence Welk was also a canny developer who put his mark on Santa Monica with the Champagne Towers apartment complex and the General Telephone high-rise office tower.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

6500 Wilshire

I. M. Pei
Luckman Partnership
Cadillac Fairview hired architects I. M. Pei and the Luckman Partnership to design its flagship building, apparently sparing no expense in either construction or materials.
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 by Larry Underhill

American Cement Building Lofts

DMJM
Built to house the American Cement Company's headquarters and to showcase the strength, construction advantages, and architectural possibilities of concrete.
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 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 Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy

Capitol Records Tower

Welton Becket & Associates
The world's first circular office building and one of L.A.'s most iconic buildings, an important illustration of the evolving work of Welton Becket and Associates during the 1950s.
Photo from Tom Gardner Collection/Conservancy archives

CBS Television City

Pereira & Luckman
Gin Wong
CBS' Television City was one of the first and largest complexes built expressly for television production and broadcasting, and clearly signified L.A.'s intent to become the capital of television broadcasting.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Century Plaza Towers

Minoru Yamasaki
Yamasaki's design for the Corporate International-style towers reflects his belief that buildings should use the smallest possible amount of materials to attain the greatest possible stability, function, and aesthetic appeal.
Great Western Savings
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Chase Bank, Gardena

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Completed in 1961, the building was the prototype for all other Great Western Savings buildings and boasted an all-concrete design and walls made entirely of glass.
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Citibank

Kurt Meyer and Associates
Considered among the finest examples of Brutalist design in L.A., the original Liberty Savings and Loan is surprisingly neither monolithic nor overpowering.
HSBC Tower
Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group

Figueroa Tower

A. C. Martin & Associates
Kamnitzer Cotton Vreeland
At the corner of West Seventh and South Figueroa Streets is a curious sight, combining the characteristics of the historic French Chateauesque style with the sleek verticality of a modern high-rise office building.
Flynt Publications
Photo by Larry Underhill

Flynt Publications

William L. Pereira & Associates
One of the first buildings to champion the use of computer-aided design (CAD), the Great Western Savings building also maximized floor space with its eye-catching oval shape.

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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.