Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [31]
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LA has the largest number of small theaters in the nation.
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Among actors, LA is known for ‘equity waiver’ theaters, whose capacity (under 99 seats) allows actors to appear outside of the rules of the stage-actors’ union Actors’ Equity. Often these small theaters are incubators for larger productions or showcases for up-and-coming actors, writers and directors. Check local listings.
Architecture
SPANISH MISSION & VICTORIAN STYLES
The first Spanish missions were built around courtyards, using materials the native Californians and padres found on hand: adobe, limestone and grass. The missions crumbled into disrepair as the church’s influence waned, but the style remained practical for the climate. It was later adapted as the rancho adobe style, as seen at El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the Presidio in Santa Barbara and in San Diego’s Old Town.
During the late 19th century the upper class built grand mansions to keep up with East Coast fashion, which reflected popular design worldwide during the reign of the UK’s Queen Victoria. One of the finest examples of Victorian whimsy is San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado. San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter is also filled with such buildings.
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Downtown LA’s 73-story, 1018ft US Bank Tower (aka Library Tower) is the tallest building between Chicago and Taiwan.
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With its more simple, classical lines, Spanish Colonial architecture – or mission revival, as it’s also called – rejected the frilly Victorian style and hearkened back to the California missions with arched doors and windows, long covered porches, fountains, courtyards, solid walls and red-tile roofs. The style’s heyday lasted from 1890 to 1915. William Templeton Johnson and the young Irving Gill fortified this trend, especially in San Diego. The train depots in LA, San Juan Capistrano and San Diego were built in this style. San Diego’s Balboa Park also showcases some outstanding examples.
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The Irvine Company, a private real estate firm, controls much of southern Orange County’s architectural design. The predominant style is Tuscan.
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CRAFTSMAN & ART DECO
Charles and Henry Greene and Julia Morgan ushered in the Arts and Crafts (Craftsman) movement of the early 20th century. Simplicity and harmony were key design principles in this movement, blending Asian, European and American influences. The movement’s defining building is a one-story bungalow. Overhanging eaves, terraces and sleeping porches are transitions between, and extensions of, the house into its natural environment. Pasadena’s Gamble House is one of the most beautiful examples of this.
By the early 1920s it became fashionable to copy earlier architectural periods. No style was off-limits: neoclassical, baroque, Moorish, Mayan, Aztec or Egyptian. Downtown LA’s Richard Riordan Central Library and City Hall are prime examples.
Art deco also took off during the 1920s and ’30s, with vertical lines and symmetry creating a soaring effect, often culminating in a stepped pattern toward the top. Heavy ornamentation, especially above doors and windows, featured floral motifs, sunbursts and zigzags. You can see it in the Eastern Columbia building Click here in Downtown LA and the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood.
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Palm Springs Weekend (2001) by Alan Hess and Andrew Danish is the definitive guide to midcentury modern architecture, with brilliant photographs.
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Streamline Moderne, a derivative of art deco, sought to incorporate the machine aesthetic, in particular the aerodynamic look of airplanes and ocean liners. Great examples of this style include the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant in Downtown LA Click here and the Crossroads of the World building in Hollywood.
MODERNISM
Also called the ‘International Style,’ modernism