Eastern Columbia Building

Coordinates: 34°02′34″N 118°15′22″W / 34.042751°N 118.256226°W

Eastern Columbia Building

Eastern Columbia Building
Location 849 S. Broadway, Los Angeles
Built 1930
Architect Claud Beelman
Architectural style(s) Art Deco
Designated June 28, 1985[1]
Reference no. 294[1]
Front entrance on Broadway
Terra cotta sunburst design in gold behind sky blue and deep blue above the front doors
Eastern Columbia Building from across the street

The Eastern Columbia Building is a thirteen-story building located at 849 S. Broadway in the Broadway Theater District of downtown Los Angeles and is considered by many to be the most beautiful of Los Angeles's historic buildings, as well as its finest surviving example of Art Deco architecture following the 1969 destruction of Richfield Tower. It is easily spotted from Interstate 10 due to its bright turquoise color.

The building sits just across the street from the restored Orpheum Theatre. Developer Kor Realty Group turned the property into condominiums that opened in fall 2006.


History

The Eastern Columbia Building was designed by Claud Beelman and opened on September 12, 1930, after just nine months of construction. It was built as the new headquarters of the Eastern Outfitting Company and the Columbia Outfitting Company, furniture and clothing stores. With the construction of this lavish structure, the companies could also boast one of the largest buildings constructed in the 1930s.

The building was listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1985.[1]

Building features

It is built of steel-reinforced concrete and clad in glossy turquoise terra cotta trimmed with deep blue and gold trim.[2] The building's vertical emphasis is accentuated by deeply recessed bands of paired windows and spandrels with copper panels separated by vertical columns. The façade is decorated with a wealth of motifs—sunburst patterns, geometric shapes, zigzags, chevrons and stylized animal and plant forms. The building is capped with a four-sided clock tower emblazoned with the name "Eastern" in neon and crowned with a central smokestack surrounded by four stylized flying buttresses. The sidewalks surrounding the Broadway and Ninth Street sides of the building are of multi-colored terrazzo laid in a dynamic pattern of zigzags and chevrons. The central main entrance has a spectacular recessed two-story vestibule adorned with a blue and gold terra cotta sunburst. The vestibule originally led to a pedestrian retail arcade running through the center of the building.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Department of City Planning. "Designated Historic-Cultural Monuments". City of Los Angeles. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  2. ↑ Wurman, Richard Saul & Pietschmann, Patti Covello. Access Los Angeles. HarperCollins (2008), p. 37.

External links

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