Art Deco is an architectural style that is very much associated with Los Angeles. Since the new style first appeared in the 1920’s, at the Exposition des Arts décoratifs in Paris, through the 1930’s there was a boom in construction in LA, and developers immediately turned to the new style for inspiration. Art Deco seemed as if it was invented for the U.S., The use of vertical lines made it perfect for cities like New York and Chicago, that were growing upwards, and the emphasis on modernity, technology and progress seemed perfectly aligned with American values and culture.

By the late 1930’s the continuing Great Depression meant the U.S. was feeling much less confident in the American Project, and so the style, which by then had morphed into Streamline Moderne, gradually fell out of favor. Construction rates across the country and in Los Angeles dropped hugely as a result of the depression anyway.

Nevertheless, by then Los Angeles had acquired an almost unmatched collection of beautiful Art Deco buildings spread around the city. In this article I’ll list ten of my favorite Art Deco buildings in Los Angeles.

Background to Art Deco

At the turn of the last century two architectural styles were largely dominant in Europe and the U.S., Art Nouveau and Beaux Arts. Both had emerged in France, although Beaux Arts was a style of neoclassicism based on the architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. Both Europeans and Americans, in slightly different ways, saw themselves as inheritors of the mantle of the mighty Roman Empire and liked their buildings to reflect that sense of solidity and stability, evoking the glories of Ancient Rome.

Other styles, such as Baroque, Byzantine and Gothic, had come and gone, but classically designed architecture had never entirely gone out of fashion since the Seventeenth Century.

Art Nouveau emerged towards the end of the Nineteenth Century and was a clear break with these previous styles. It found inspiration in the natural world, using curved lines, organic forms and motifs drawn from nature, such as flowers, birds and leaves.

The Arts and Crafts movement, which lead to the American Craftsman style house that’s common in Los Angeles, was inspirational to Art Nouveau. The famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was in turn heavily influenced by both.

Art Nouveau Buildings in Los Angeles

There are some examples of Art Nouveau too in Los Angeles, such as the Fine Arts Building on 7th Street, and El Dorado (which opened as the Stowell Hotel) on Spring Street, but the style never fully took hold in the U.S. when it came to designing large buildings. Perhaps it was a bit too artistic?

Nevertheless, the Stowell Hotel has a place in film history as being the residence of one Charles Chaplin for several months, when he first moved to Los Angeles, in 1913 (the year the hotel opened). Now the building houses loft apartments.

However, the onset of the First World War led to a decisive break with this more gentle and bucolic vision of life, and the art world was yearning for a style more suited to the 1920’s by then, with old barriers coming down and clear technological progress from the pre-war period obvious to everyone.

Art Deco First Appears

Ironically, it was an event that evoked Ancient Egypt in the distant past that proved to be one of the biggest inspirations for this forward looking new style. Nevertheless, the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in November 1922 created a craze for Egyptology, including Hollywood’s Mummy movies.

This was undoubtedly the inspiration for the building of the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood (originally the plan was for the theater to be built in the Spanish Mission style), even though the theater opened a month before Tut’s tomb was entered. Like any good marketing genius Sid Grauman, the owner of the theater, was just ahead of the trend and the theater held the world’s very first red-carpet premiere with Douglas Fairbanks’ Robin Hood, when it opened in October 1922.

The culture of Ancient Egypt went on to be strongly featured in Art Deco: the use of a stepped-back tower, to suggest a pyramid, the use of chevrons, hieroglyphs and the sunburst. Ra, the Sun God was the main deity in the religion of the pharaohs, and he’s often to be found on Art Deco buildings. It was a moment when it seemed to many as if humans were now the sun gods. Holders of immense power over nature, through technology.

For Art Nouveau nature was the muse, and Beaux Arts looked to the lost glories of Ancient Rome for inspiration, but with Art Deco the art world would go further back than the Roman Empire, or even Classical Athens, it would draw from one of the greatest civilizations the world had ever seen, more than 4,000 years ago.

Science and technology were also touchstones for the new style. Although what’s now-known as the First World War had been terrible, for an all-too-brief moment people believed that the world was headed in a more positive direction. After the horrors of the Great War, as it was known then, it was felt that another war was impossible. That it was now obvious to everyone that the cost would be too high, due to modern industrialization and weapons.

This optimistic feeling translated into Art Deco in the vertical lines, leading the eye up and making it literally uplifting as a style, another reason it became so popular in the U.S. so quickly. The clean lines would also look futuristic, scientific and aerodynamic.

Exposition of Decorative Arts Brings Art Deco to Life

Despite elements of Art Deco appearing both in furnishings, such as lamps and chairs, as well as architecturally, it was exactly a hundred years ago, at the exposition, that Art Deco first appeared as a fully developed style. This was very similar to how the Exposition Universelle in Paris had introduced Art Nouveau to the world 25 years before, in 1900.

The Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes took place in Paris from April to October 1925. Soon the event had given its name to the new style that it championed, although it took several years for that to happen.

Before long the art and design exhibited there was copied around the world, in the soaring skyscrapers of the U.S., in the ocean liners that criss-crossed the Atlantic, and in new movie theaters being built around the world. It had a major influence in the design of fashion, jewellery, furniture, glass, metalwork, textiles and other decorative arts.

Art Deco Comes to Los Angeles

In many ways the first Art Deco building in LA was Central Public Library, in downtown. However, although the library opened in 1926, it was completed to a design by architect Bertram Goodhue, who had died suddenly in 1924, a year BEFORE the Exposition.

Nevertheless, the design for the exterior was a clear precursor to Art Deco, not least in its heavy use of Egyptology. There is a tower with a pyramid after all, which is covered in symbols from Ancient Egypt (consequently fueling conspiracy theories that the building is some kind of Masonic Temple).

Sure enough it didn’t take long after the exposition closed for the new design to appear in Los Angeles. The Oviatt Building on Olive Street, which was completed in 1928, is widely regarded as the first true Art Deco building in Los Angeles, and soon it was joined by others, both in downtown and throughout Southern California.

Best of LA Art Deco

There are a lot of beautiful Art Deco buildings in Los Angeles. Especially if you include Streamline Moderne designs, such as the Griffith Observatory, which is definitely an iconic LA building. However, for this list I’ve just included my personal favorites when it comes to pure Art Deco.

1. LOS ANGELES CITY HALL

Los Angeles City Hall has to be my top pick, since it’s such an iconic building, seen in so many movies, TV shows and news pieces.

By the mid-1920’s LA was in desperate need of a new city hall. In 25 years the city had grown from 100,000 inhabitants to nearly a million and the old city hall on Broadway, which was from 1888, was woefully inadequate. Also, in 1923, Los Angeles had been awarded the hosting rights for the 1932 Summer Olympics, so city leaders were looking for a building that would impress the world. And they got one.

The city turned to its premiere architect, John Parkinson, for the design. Parkinson was behind some of the city’s most beautiful neo-classical buildings, but he was able to absorb this new style so well that he went on to design some of its best examples of Art Deco too, including this one. Parkinson would also go on to the design the Los Angeles Coliseum for the Olympic Games.

Even though LA did need a much bigger city hall it actually didn’t require the 454 foot 32 story tower that Parkinson planned for it, but for once there was plenty of money available. Since the U.S. economy seemed to be some kind of economic miracle in the 20’s and Los Angeles itself had become the center of two big new industries, oil and moving pictures, the city wanted a statement building. So the tower was approved.

A 1905 City Council ordinance did not permit any new construction to be taller than 13 stories, or 150 feet, in order to keep the city’s architecture harmonious. City Hall was deemed exempt, as a public building, and so no building would surpass one third of its height for more than three decades, until the ordinance was repealed in 1957. Even then it wasn’t until 1966 that a taller building appeared on LA’s skyline.

Originally the Parkinsons planned on crowning the tower with a dome, but that was changed to a pyramid, giving City Hall a clear Art Deco look, even though it has some neo-classical elements. Despite it being significantly superseded in height over recent decades the building has been a beautiful symbol of Los Angeles, ever since it opened nearly 100 years ago, in 1928.

You can visit the observation deck Monday to Friday, 8 am to 4.45 pm. It has some of he best views in DTLA.

2. JAMES OVIATT BUILDING

Hailed as the first Art Deco building in Los Angeles, the Jamies Oviatt Building was originally supposed to be Beaux Arts in design. Oviatt, who was the owner of the building that was to house his clothing business, had been to the Exposition des Arts decoratifs and he loved the modern look. Anyway, it was the new style in architecture and he was in the style business.

He went to the studios of René Lalique, a jewelry designer and glass-maker, at the expo and Lalique was contracted to design and make all the glass-work for the new building – thirty tons of it was shipped through the Panama Canal. Unfortunately almost none of the glass in the lobby is original, most of it being sold off in the 1970’s and 80’s.

At the top of the building was the real piece de la resistance, a “castle in the air” – Oviatt’s ten-room penthouse. There was a tennis court on the roof, practice golf links and a garden, with a pool. He even imported sand from France for the poolside (which was ridiculously extravagant when you think how close the Oviatt is to the beach).

The building opened in May 1928. The first three levels were for Oviatt’s high-end haberdashery, with the open area at the entrance designed so that shoppers could bring their prospective purchases out to look at using natural light. The rest of the building was quickly filled with ad companies, political campaigns, lawyers and costumiers.

Unfortunately as downtown declined as a shopping destination in the 1960’s so the store fell out of fashion, closing in 1968. In 1989 the ground floor and mezzanine reopened as the Cicada Restaurant and Lounge, a lovely Art Deco bar and restaurant. Famously it was used as a location in the movie Pretty Woman.

3. EASTERN COLUMBIA BUILDING

The Eastern Columbia Building is arguably the style’s purest expression in Los Angeles. With its beautiful turquoise terracotta tiles, sunbursts, zig zag chevrons and stepped-back tower (with its clock naturally drawing the eye upwards), the building is a triumph of Art Deco design. Los Angeles Conservancy president and CEO Linda Dishman describes it as being “one of the great, iconic buildings of Los Angeles”. She’s right.

Designed by one of Art Deco’s leading architects, Claud Beelman, it opened in 1930 as the headquarters of Eastern and Columbia Outfitting Company (hence the building’s name), which had a chain of furniture and clothing stores. 

Broadway was LA’s top shopping and theatre district, so it was a great location for the company’s flagship store but, in 1957, the company moved out of downtown and the building was converted into offices.

Then, in 2006, the Eastern underwent a $30 million, award-winning conversion to create 150-odd condominiums. The building began attracting celebrities, one of whom was Johnny Depp, Depp scooped up a unit in 2007, and he eventually bought an entire wing, with five loft condos offering direct access to the sky deck and pool.

Apparently Depp kept them largely separate though, living in them like rooms in a home, and it was here that he lived with Amber Heard, his then-wife. When that relationship had a very public breakdown in 2017 he decided to sell up and listed all his penthouses for a total of $12.7 million.

It was at this point that one of our downtown tours happened to be passing the building one day. A realtor came out of the Eastern and asked the guide if the group of around ten guests were there to see the for-sale condos. Thinking quickly the guide correctly answered “yes”, and the whole group was taken upstairs and given a tour of Depp’s five penthouses. A true celebrity homes tour!

The condos could be purchased all together or individually, but it’s not recorded if any of our guests made an offer.

4. TITLE GUARANTEE AND TRUST BUILDING

The Title Guarantee Building is one of the most striking Art Deco structures in Los Angeles. It was also designed by father and son architectural team John and Donald Parkinson.

The building opened in 1930 and the Parkinson’s so liked it that they moved their firm’s offices in upon its opening. Unfortunately it was here, in 1935 that John Parkinson had a heart attack, the great man dying a a week or so later.

The entrance lobby is decorated with six murals by Hugo Ballin, celebrating different chapters of Southern California history, such as saber-toothed cats at the La Brea Tar Pits and the 1876 arrival of the railroad. The modern panel depicts the elements that led to Los Angeles’ then-recent rise to power: the Owens Valley aqueduct, oil derricks and other machinery,

In 2007 the Title Guarantee Building reopened after being converted into loft apartments.

5. BULLOCKS WILSHIRE BUILDING

The building opened in 1929 as a luxury department store for the seven-store Southern California chain Bullock’s. With car ownership in the region sky-rocketing in the 1920’s, Bullock’s wanted to offer their guests an easier option than schlepping into downtown, to their flagship store on Broadway.

This was yet another design from the office of John and Donald Parkinson, and they gave the building a beautiful 241 foot tower, which is sheathed in green copper at the top and elsewhere. At one time the tower had a light that could be seen for miles around at night. 

Bullocks Wilshire was one of the first department stores in Los Angeles to cater to the burgeoning automobile culture and was located in what was then an upmarket residential district. Only a few years earlier the Ambassador Hotel had opened less than half a mile west, from the new department store. Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s the Oscars Ceremony was frequently held at the Cocoanut Grove, at the Ambassador.

Another innovation of the Parkinson’s was to place the main entrance at the rear. Under the city’s first department store porte cochere, valets in livery welcomed patrons and parked their cars. Since then the rear entrance, allowing easy access from a parking area, has become almost standard in Los Angeles for restaurants, shops, bars and many other commercial properties.

From the 1930’s to the 1950’s Bullocks Wilshire was very popular with many Hollywood stars and LA society. It wasn’t uncommon to see a movie star, such as John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Alfred Hitchcock, Greta Garbo, Walt Disney or Clark Gable, while perusing the merchandise. Angela Lansbury famously worked at Bullocks as a sales assistant while waiting for her big break, when she first arrived in Los Angeles.

The department store only closed in 1993 (after a re-brand and name-change) and was bought by Southwestern Law School (which was already based in the building next door). It was beautifully restored and is now an integral part of their campus. Occasionally the LA Conservancy offer tours of the building.

6. PANTAGES THEATRE

The Pantages was completed in 1930 and it was built for the impresario Alexander Pantages, who owned a chain of over 80 theaters (mostly on the West Coast). Pantages already owned a theater in downtown, but he wanted a showcase theater in the new entertainment district of Hollywood and it was his biggest, with seating for 2,812.

Pantages had made his original fortune in the Klondike Gold Rush, where he’d found a lot of the precious stuff. Not in the ground though: Pantages and his partner, Klondike Kate, had owned the best brothel in Dawson City, and it was a veritable gold mine. Since around 1903, when he’d arrived in the U.S. he had built up his chain of theaters (and left Kate behind).

Originally the building was meant to be twelve stories, with the theater occupying the first two and an office tower taking up the next ten floors, but due to the onset of the Great Depression, plans for the office tower were put on ice, and only the theater was built.

Still, it’s a triumph of Art Deco design, featuring first floor windows outlined with metal zigzag frames, Egyptian lotus patterns, and two sculptured goddesses to highlight the roofline. The theater’s forecourt has a lavish ceiling with gold, silver and bronze-colored starbursts that radiate in multiple geometric patterns.

Inside, past the vast magnificent lobby, the crowning beauty of the theater’s auditorium is its ceiling. Designed by Anthony Heinsbergen, the ceiling features a series of fretwork sunray effects that spread out from the center, where a large frosted glass and bronze chandelier is hung.

Unfortunately for Pantages, he wasn’t able to enjoy his theater for long. In 1930 he was accused of raping a dancer who was auditioning for a show, in his offices in downtown. Although he was eventually acquitted the whole affair brought the curtain down on Pantages career, and he died a few years later.

As you live by the sword, so shall you die by the sword. Although Pantages himself always blamed Joseph Kennedy for setting him up and paying the dancer $10,000 to accuse him. Kennedy did want to buy Pantages’ circuit for RKO Pictures, the Hollywood studio in which he had invested, and after the trial he was able to buy it for a much reduced price.

In 1949 Howard Hughes acquired the Pantages, while he was the owner of RKO. It was also the venue for the Oscars Ceremony from 1951-61, which was when the event first began to be televised. In 2000 it was given a full renovation, for which it won a Conservancy Preservation Award and it’s now one of the main venues for Broadway type shows in Los Angeles (more information here}.

7. SUNSET TOWER

The Sunset Tower is located on the Sunset Strip, in a commanding position half-way up the Hollywood Hills, with fantastic views of the West Side, right from the Pacific across to downtown. When it opened in 1931 the Los Angeles Times opined:

What is described to be the tallest apartment-house in Los Angeles County, rising 15 stories or 195 feet, was completed last week at Kings Road and Sunset Boulevard.

The height limit for buildings in the city of Los Angeles was 150 feet, but the Sunset Tower was in unincorporated territory at the time, and so was not limited by that regulation. Allied to its high position on a hill, this gave the building unparalleled prominence and views.

The tower was designed to appeal to the wealthy Hollywood elite, which it did. An article headline in the Screen Actors Guild magazine breathlessly read:

Faultless in Appointment-The Ultimate in Privacy . . . Hollywood’s Most Distinguished Address.

During its first heyday, from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, it housed such notable celebrities as Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Caine, Quincy Jones and Roger Moore. Los Angeles Mafia kingpin Bugsy Siegel also maintained a residence at the building throughout the 1930’s and 40’s (in 1944 he was arrested at the tower, on a charge of wire-bookmaking).

Billionaire Hollywood producer/director Howard Hughes lived there too, apparently maintaining several mistresses in various suites. At the time the Sunset Tower had developed a reputation for having the best-kept call-girls in LA (allegedly), so there might be a connection.

There is story that John Wayne once brought a cow to his room at 3 am, telling his guests to get milk for their coffee directly from the source if they wanted it. But others have pointed to the rather cosy elevators as being too small to allow such Hollywood hi-jinks.

Now the Sunset Tower is a very upmarket hotel, with a lovely wood-paneled bar on the ground floor (more information here). A good night to visit is Friday, right after our Sunset Strip: True Crime & Ghost Tour.

8. PELLISSIER BUILDING AND WILTERN THEATRE

Designed by Stiles Clements and opening as the Warner Brothers Western Theatre (with an office tower above the theater) in 1931, this building is a fantastic example of Los Angeles Art Deco. When the Wiltern opened it housed the largest theater pipe organ in the western United States and beautiful colorful murals, also painted by Anthony Heinsbergen. It was a flagship theatre for the Warner Bothers theater chain.

The Wiltern operated as a theater until 1980, when it closed. There was a campaign to save it, which was one of the first battles that the LA Conservancy won. After a sensitive renovation it was turned into a concert venue, and it’s now operated by LiveNation (more information here).

9. CALEDISON

What was then the Southern California Edison Company Building opened in 1931. It was the headquarters of the energy utility company, and as such required a high level of design. It definitely got it with this building.

Back then, long before that thing called the internet, customers would need to come into the building to pay their bills, so the interior was built to impress. Especially as even in the 1930’s the power companies were seen by many in the way that internet start-ups are often perceived now: that they could be here one day and gone the next.

Below the thirty-foot high coffered lobby ceiling, where customers would enter, the floor and walls are composed of no less than seventeen different types of marble. At the end of the lobby is a mural by Hugo Ballin titled Power. The whole is hugely impressive.

There’s a lovely coffee shop in the lobby, so this is one Art Deco building in Los Angeles that you can easily enjoy.

10. RICHFIELD TOWER

The Richfield Tower is on the list, even though it no longer exists, for a couple of reasons.

The first is that it was widely regarded at the time as an iconic design for the city. The company that financed its construction was Richfield Oil, one of the largest such companies on the West Coast. Accordingly the idea was for the building’s design to reflect that, which it did to the extent that it was covered in black terracotta tiles and modeled on an oil derrick, with the powerful light at the top representing the black gold gushing out of the building. It was a great metaphor for the huge wealth of the industry and Richfield Oil itself.

The design (by Stiles Clements) featured golden angels, looking down on the city of angels, from the building’s summit. It seems like the perfect expression of a moment in time, when America, Los Angeles and oil companies like Richfield, felt like they were masters of the universe. It was a brief moment, as the building opened in 1929, the year of the Wall Street Crash and the onset of the Great Depression.

By the 1960’s though Richfield Oil was merging with Atlantic, as the big petrochemical companies looked to join forces to better guarantee profits (otherwise known as forming monopolies). Now Atlantic and Richfield are better known as forming the first two letters of ARCO. They didn’t need/want the Richfield Tower, so it was demolished to large public outcry in 1969.

Which brings me to the second reason that the Richfield Tower is on my list. Because when the featureless modern buildings that replaced it were constructed in the 1970’s it drew an even bigger public outcry. Such that when plans were announced to redevelop the Los Angeles Public Library in front of them in the 1980’s it galvanized the city to introduce Historic Preservation laws, which would stop losses, like that of the Richfield Tower.

It was from this battle to save the library that the LA Conservancy was born. Since then it has been responsible for saving many other historical and important buildings in LA, including several on this list (such as the Pellissier Building and the Sunset Tower Hotel).

Learn More About Art Deco in Los Angeles

Our LA: Food + History + Design Tour is the best for seeing some true architectural marvels in LA, such as Union Station, the Bradbury Building and City Hall. But our LA in a Day, Real Hollywood and Central Downtown LA tours all visit some of the buildings on this list.

Something else to consider, if you live in or near Los Angeles, would be looking into the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles. It’s a non-profit organization that advocates for preserving Art Deco in LA and regularly organizes events around the city, including an annual ball, which looks like a lot of fun (more information here).

This map is interactive. To open in Google Maps click the icon in the top right corner.

If you have any feedback on Art Deco Los Angeles: 10 Key Locations please email us or reach out on social media, we’d love to hear from you.

– By Damien Blackshaw (Twitter)