Buildings Still Sport Streamline Legacy : Architecture: The sleek, ‘Moderne’ style popularized in the ‘30s is very much a part of the Southland scene.

When the Great Depression came, America’s sudden poverty changed every element of life, including architecture. Gone were the gold-leaf tracings, European marbles, delicate bronzes and silver metalwork of the Art Deco ‘20s.

In their place were simple, inexpensive building materials like concrete, stucco and glass. This “Moderne” style of architecture, while done on a shoestring building budget, reflected a great optimism about the future.

Then in 1934, Santa Monica resident Donald Douglas designed the first Douglas commercial aircraft (DC-3) in the form of a “teardrop”--the most efficient shape in lowering wind resistance when placed in the “stream lines” of a wind tunnel.

Industrial designers immediately applied this “Streamline” style to trains, automobiles and ocean liners. They also applied it to buildings. The result was “Streamline Moderne,” a fantasy of curved, horizontal forms and rounded corners.

By the time of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, Streamline Moderne was heralded as “the new American style,” but it had peaked in popularity.

As America emerged triumphant from the Depression and World War II, the practical, thrifty architectural style was abandoned in favor of “International Modern,” an odd, intellectual style imported from Europe which was minimalist, unemotional and precise.

Still, there are plenty of examples of Moderne and Streamline Moderne in and around Los Angeles:

Moderne

In 1929, the first science-fiction comic strip, “Buck Rogers, 25th Century” appeared in newspapers. Architects sought to capture this flight to fantasy in their buildings. Entrances were designed like the opening to Buck Rogers’ rocket ship; globes and rocket ships and stars adorned the roofs, light fixtures and ceramic tiling of many 1930s-era edifices.

The Griffith Observatory, Griffith Park, East Observatory Road, Los Feliz, (1935), is an otherworldly example of this trend. In its foreground is a monument topped by an astrolabe, dedicated to the world’s greatest stargazers. The building itself features three great black domes and an Aztec-influenced entrance.

The Academy Theater, 3100 Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, (1939), was another place where Angelenos could escape their woes in the dark. It is a futuristic, sweepingly designed structure embellished in red, white and blue, featuring glass-brick windows, stucco sheathing and a thin, 125-foot cylindrical tower wrapped in spiral moldings and topped by an optimistic sunburst.

Government buildings were appropriately austere in design, reflecting the country’s economic hardships, yet symbolizing solidity, solvency and optimism. Their style is classified as “PWA Moderne.” The buildings boasted clean, unornamented surfaces, sweeping horizontal lines, curved corners, and occasional bright, gaily colored banding.

Santa Monica Post Office, 1248 5th Ave., Santa Monica, (1937), is one such building, featuring fluted piers, large vertical, recessed window panels, and peppermint-pink banding. Nearby Santa Monica City Hall, 1685 Main St., Santa Monica, (1938), is solidly symmetrical, almost resembling a Mesopotamian ziggurat, and features blue piping, a colorfully tiled entrance and repeating banks of vertical windows.

A more monumental example of 1930s-era government construction is the U.S. Customs House and Post Office, northwest corner of Beacon and 9th streets, San Pedro, (1935), which features fluted piers, towering vertical window panels, and an appropriately unadorned exterior.

Schools, too, were designed in this classical, horizontal style. Long Beach Polytech High School Auditorium, Atlantic Avenue and 15th Street, Long Beach, (1932), is a massive Mayan-influenced structure boasting a stark, concrete exterior, modernized rectangular columns, and lapis-blue/green roof detailing. (Note the whimsical Art Deco lettering atop the entrance.)

Streamline Moderne

While awaiting economic salvation, America focused its attention on the development of transportation machines. Speed became an American obsession: “(It) is the cry of our era, and greater speed one of our goals of tomorrow,” wrote designer Norman Bel Geddes in 1932. Streamline Moderne gave buildings a “fast” motion and rapidly became the most popular architectural style of the decade. The form was attractive, witty and colorful.

The Coca-Cola Building, 1334 S. Central Ave., Los Angeles, (1936), designed by Robert Derrah, is an internationally known example of “Nautical” Streamline Moderne. It is shaped like an 1890s ocean liner, complete with porthole windows, ship doors, promenade deck, catwalk and metal riveting.

Two other commercial examples of Streamline Moderne can be found in Huntington Park. The Lane Wells Co. Building, 5610 S. Soto St., (1938), features four cascading columns of pink, blue and white that seem to “pour” down the building’s facade. Metal bandwork encircles the structure’s expansive rounded windows.

Its next-door neighbor, the W. W. Henry Co. Building, 5608 S. Soto St., (1939), is equally impressive. It features black piping against its stark white exterior, two vertically prominent piers and a lushly landscaped entrance.

Though the staid Colonial Revival house remained the most popular American home style, Streamline Moderne became a sought-after design form for the apartment complexes sprouting in America’s cities.

The eight-story Shangri-La Apartments, 1301 Ocean Ave., Santa Monica, (1939), is one such building, with a particularly attractive nautical flair. Once the haunt of movie idols and visiting VIPs, the building was designed in a L shape, so all living rooms and bedrooms face the ocean. The Shangri-La’s entrance is glass brick, and its trademark marquee features flamboyant Art Deco lettering on a black-and-ocean-blue background.

Two other apartment complexes, a nautically styled Duplex, 754-56 Harper Ave., West Hollywood, (1936), and a larger, more intricate Apartment Complex, 3919 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, (1935), also illustrate residential Streamline Moderne.