Breakfast Club ‘Rose’ for Biltmore Tower

Winning a “rose” last week as the most attractive new building downtown was the Biltmore Tower, a 24-story office addition to the historic Biltmore Hotel at Olive and 5th streets.

The award was bestowed by the Downtown Breakfast Club, an occasional gathering of people in the design and development field and in public service, who for the last few years have been handing out “roses” and “lemons” to call attention to the shaping and mishaping of the central city.

The club praised the tower for respecting the adjacent landmark by using similar brick with limestone quoins and matching its detailing. Looking at it carefully from different perspectives and in varying light, the tower does seem to capture well the Italianate tone of the Beaux Arts landmark.

Yet the tower designed with a flair by the Landau Partnership also makes its own architectural statement with an octagonal, gabled cooper roof accented by bay windows that not coincidentally hide a helicopter landing pad required by the city.

While the new tower does add some welcomed interest to the city’s skyline, much less successful, I feel, is its base consisting of a parking garage and a remodeled and reoriented hotel lobby. Once a gracious two-story space entered from Olive Street across from Pershing Square, the main lobby is now an overdecorated and overembellished room off of 5th Street.

Also winning a “rose” was the conversion of the Engine Company No. 28 firehouse at 644 S. Figueroa St. into a restaurant with offices above. The restoration of the Renaissance Revival-styled structure originally constructed in 1912 was supervised by the architectural firm of Altoon & Porter with obvious love for the nationally recognized landmark.

This year’s “lemon” went to the Los Angeles Mall in the Civic Center, which the club labeled “a depressing non-humanistic environment” while expressing the hope that perhaps the award will prompt its owner, the city of Los Angeles, to make some needed improvements. Cited by the club was, among other things, the mall’s shabby landscaping, poor lighting, missing graphics and confusing signage.

The mutlilevel structure was not always in such a state. When the mall opened in the the early 1970s, it was hailed as an imaginative addition to the City Hall complex, infusing it with activity while serving as a convenience to government employees and others in the area.

The severe, concrete-clad Modernist design of the mall by the architectural firm of Stanton and Stockwell was very much in the mode then. And the pedestrian skyway over Temple Street was considered a glimpse of what was thought to be a vision of the future downtown city scape.

Enhancing this image was the addition a few years later of a 60-foot structure known as the Triforium, conceived by artist Joseph Young, to generate an orchestrated light and music show. However, it has never seemed to be operating, at least not when I have viewed it. The mall, indeed, has had more than its share of problems.

Indicating some strong differing opinions within the club, the office tower at 1000 Wilshire Blvd. was a runner-up for both a “rose” and a “lemon.” The Post Modern-style tower with Art Deco and Classical allusions was fashioned by the New York-based firm of Kohn Pederson Fox, in association with Langdon Wilson Mumper.

Located just east of the Harbor Freeway, the striking structure does prompt some double takes and questions by passing motorists, among them exactly how many floors there are. This question was alluded to by the club, which in its comments at the awards ceremony described 1000 Wilshire as the “world’s tallest seven-story building.”

Actually, the tower is 21 stories, but its banding and fenestrations of light gray and black granite and black glass, in varying combinations from different perspectives, can confuse the eye. It also, in my opinion, creates a distinctive rhythm that I find engaging, especially at night, when, among other things, its classical-style penthouse is lit up.