House of Fine Arts (Los Angeles)

Brief Information

The Fine Arts Building looks like a compact twelve-story block, but its structure is more complex than a simple vertical box: the building’s plan has an H-shaped form, while the facade as a whole reads as a trapezoid. The light stone cladding made of square slabs makes the geometry especially noticeable and helps show that the building’s main effect is built not on size, but on a strict assembly of planes and the entrance.

The building was designed by Albert Raymond Walker and Percy Eisen in 1927. In 1974, it was declared a historic-cultural monument. These dates are important not in themselves: they help one view the building as a preserved architectural object, where the layout, cladding, and decorative portal are considered part of its value, rather than an accidental adornment of a commercial building.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to compare three levels of the facade: the lower, middle, and upper parts. This division repeats a Renaissance-era device, in which a building is perceived as a tall composition with different “stories” of expressiveness. The lower part works most strongly because it is closer to the person and therefore received the most detailed decoration.

The main detail of the lower facade is a large portal with a rounded arch two stories high. The passage is described as deep and widening, so the entrance is not simply cut into the wall, but draws the facade inward. The arched lintels have plant ornamentation, and the walls beneath the enormous arch imitate curls of acanthus leaves in terracotta reliefs. In this way, the building can be read from bottom to top: from the almost tactile ornament at the entrance to the calmer stone plane above.