Post-Modern Touch Comes to Downtown
Downtown Los Angeles will get its first office building designed in the Post-Modern architectural style when 1000 Wilshire, located immediately east of the Harbor Freeway, officially opens Tuesday.
The 21-story, $145-million office tower, a project of Reliance Development Group, is 85% leased, according to Henry Lambert, Reliance president.
Focal point of the new building is a 34-foot-tall gate house with granite columns. The main lobby is a 17-foot vaulted space finished in four colors of Italian marble.
The width of the building and its south plaza extends to 7th Street.
Easy to Recognize
Among the building’s major tenants are Coast Savings & Loan, which moved its headquarters to the new facility--its third downtown location in 52 years; Touche Ross & Co., accountants; Loeb & Loeb, law firm, and Grubb & Ellis Co., real estate brokers.
Kohn Pederson Fox, New York, handled the architectural design, and project architect was Langdon Wilson Mumper Architects, Los Angeles.
“The building was designed to be easily read and recognized from two views,” said Arthur May, Fox partner in charge of design for the project.
“From Wilshire, since it is tucked behind the Hilton hotel, you come upon the building from about 100 feet away. At that point you see the rich detailing--a feature that appears friendly to us humans. But driving along the Harbor Freeway, you see it from another scale.
“We chose to give the building a dome-like silhouette when seen against the taller downtown buildings.”
Other Developments
May said that Post-Modernism is related to some of the larger detail elements commonly found in Los Angeles Art Deco buildings of the 1920s.
Reliance is also the developer of a $65-million, 16-story office tower at 505 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, and the $60-million renovation of the downtown Hilton, which Reliance owns.
This is the third major building designed for Reliance by Kohn Pederson Fox, the others being the 23-story, 8 Penn Center in Philadelphia, and the 36-story, Amoco Building in downtown Denver.
