ARCHITECTURE : Two-Faced Brotman Building Exudes Both Activity, Tension

One of the slickest, curviest buildings on the Westside is the eight-story Brotman Medical Center Office, just off Venice Boulevard.

You might not notice it as you whiz by on a street that seems like an expressway. Its complicated game of concave and convex surfaces has been drowned by yellow paint, neglect and its position on the back edge of Culver City, so that the structure blends in with the less distinguished buildings that make up the rest of the Brotman complex. This little tower, however, is worth closer examination.

The building at 3828 Delmas Terrace has two faces: a composition of glass and metal curves on its east and north sides, and a set of rectangular blocks of stucco, concrete and glass that face generally south and west.

When you approach from the east, the tower at first appears to be a rather standard 1960s office building of alternating bands of glass and opaque materials placed on top of a pedestal. That block, however, has been deformed into a concave curve, as if opening up to the mountains to the north, whereas the vertical mullions on the eastern facade look like finials.

The base is a riot of sensuous shapes. An S-curve at the corner sweeps over the convex curve of the actual travertine metal base, exposing one column of the tower above. Somehow all these swirls sweep you around the corner onto Delmas Terrace and into the tiny lobby of the actual building.

From the west, the Brotman office building appears as solid block that has been lifted off the ground to allow entry into the two stories of parking that take over most of the ground-level space.

Apparently, this side was not really meant to be seen (there is a parking lot next to it now). It does serve as a clamp that contains the glass block stair tower fronting Venice Boulevard. You can see the white stair tower rising up within this translucent, sadly decayed skin, so that the building seems to be revealing itself to you.

The unheralded architect of this 1964 building, Vernon Welborn, reveled in such structural revelations. Everywhere you look there is an activity and a tension to the parts of the building. (The architect had originally given each of the building’s elements a different color, highlighting their functions and shapes.) Such a play of forms allows the architect to build up a complexity in just the way the different functions, structural components and faces of the building are expressed.

The architectural games may seem gratuitous, and many people today accuse architects of engaging in such games of overstatement at the expense of budget, comfort and context. But look carefully at the Brotman office building and you will see why good architects--even little-known ones--engage in such formal gymnastics. In the end, they create a building that is a condensation of complicated forms and forces, shaping both the program of the building as well as the urban landscape into a three-dimensional, physical presence. If all goes well, you then feel as if you can understand those otherwise vast, abstract forces.

One could only wish that the Brotman Medical Center did not try to hide this expressive moment of urbane clarity with its institutional paint and neglect, and that clients would give more architects the chance to make buildings that show their stuff with such brilliance.

Aaron Betsky teaches and writes about architecture and urban design.