URBAN ART : The Building of the Pyramids

If Robert Stacy-Judd had had his way, Wilshire Boulevard would look much like Chichen Itza. The British-born architect, designer of Monrovia’s Aztec Hotel and a handful of other L.A.-area buildings inspired by Mayan and Aztec structures, at one point was pushing for all the buildings on the street to look like pyramids.

Stacy-Judd landed in Hollywood in 1922, a natural move after years of designing theaters in England with Egyptian themes. Soon after his arrival, he was comissioned to design a hotel in Monrovia. Inspired by a book on Mayan and Aztec ruins, he created a facade of pre-Columbian motifs. It was the beginning of a lifelong crusade to establish pre-Columbian design as the basis for a modern “all-American” architecture. Other of his pre-Columbian-influenced creations include the First Baptist Church in Ventura, the Masonic Temple in Tujunga, the Atwater Bungalows in Elysian Park and a number of Southern California homes.

Stacy-Judd’s Mayan Revival reigned during the 1920s and 30s, extending to fireplaces, furniture and “hieroglyphic” lighting fixtures. And after expeditions to the Yucatan Peninsula to see Mexico’s ruins firsthand, he wrote two books, hit the lecture circuit and took to wearing the costume of a Mayan god.

Now Stacy-Judd and his Mayan Revival-style hotel are back in the limelight.

As much a PR man as architect, Stacy-Judd, who died in 1975, bequeathed his literary and architectural records to UC Santa Barbara. There the collection captured the imagination of David Gebhard, a professor of architectural history.

Gebhard has written “Robert Stacy-Judd: Maya Architecture, the Creation of a New Style,” a collaboration with photographer Anthony Peres to be published this summer by Capra Press.

Gebhard’s book points out that Stacy-Judd was more an uncle than the father of the movement--the earliest examples of Mayan Revival preceded the Aztec Hotel by more than a decade; even Frank Lloyd Wright beat him to the punch.

But Stacy-Judd does get credit for his prolific body of work--and his tireless promotional efforts. And he certainly understood Los Angeles--if you can’t impress them with pyramids, dazzle them with PR.