PERSPECTIVE ON ARCHITECTURE : The Wrecking Ball That Ate L.A. : Our classic buildings are a paean to the future, a mixture of high tech and high hopes. Let’s preserve them now.

The term retro is a popular one; the fascination our culture has with its past runs deep. Everything from our days of yore has become “classic.” Is there a television show from the 1960s or ‘70s that hasn’t been made into a feature film? Bell bottoms. The Beatles. Woodstock. “The Brady Bunch.” The art of reviving slices of pop culture seems to be in our cultural DNA, and nowhere more than in Los Angeles.

How odd, then, that one of L.A.’s unique contributions to culture is beginning to disappear. I’m talking about that wonderful, silly architecture of the ‘50s and ‘60s that some call “Googie” after a long-gone area coffee shop. It was the cornerstone of a “look” that dotted the Southland in gas stations, apartment buildings, homes, shopping centers, banks, government buildings, even the Theme Building at LAX. Many of us are so used to it, we rarely pause to think how uniquely L.A. it is. Sure, the style was exported to Las Vegas and elsewhere, but it was-- is-- the indigenous architecture of Los Angeles.

The neofuturistic look features lavish metal frames at odd angles, sloping glass, stone tiles, shiny chrome and “Sputnik” signs and decorations with giant oval and square facades. It was a product of the atomic age and centered on an insatiable optimism about the future. The style was part of L.A.’s development as the nation’s first metropolis designed primarily for the automobile, the first major city of the future. It’s no coincidence this architecture evolved during the great boom, when Los Angeles became one of the world’s truly great and important cities.

But a systematic demolition pattern for close to 20 years has been taking these buildings down. When you combine that with damage done by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, you have a style facing extinction sooner rather than later. This would be a tragedy. The retro style is so much more than merely building design. It’s a symbol for a period of our history that we can never reclaim, and it influenced those living and working here. Even Hanna-Barbera was a lucky beneficiary of that influence. Take one look at “The Jetsons” and you will see where our artists got its futuristic design. It came directly from the style that was exploding all around them in the early 1960s.

During that era, Hanna-Barbera was among thousands of L.A. companies to utilize the style, erecting our original building on Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood. During the past year, another has been under construction on our studio lot: a replica of the Spacely Space Age Sprockets building where George Jetson toiled to support his futuristic family.

It would be nice if our building could somehow kick off a Googie revival, but we’re not expecting that. Architectural revivals don’t happen often because, quite simply, there are fewer opportunities than with other art forms in society, such as music or movies, which are constantly in a state of evolution from project to project and artist to artist. But I am hoping, as Los Angeles prepares for the next century, that some serious attention will be focused on the need to protect this architecture from extinction.

It’s true that many people are not particularly attracted to the style or the fight to preserve it. But let’s keep in mind that when it’s gone, it’s gone and with it a living, visual chunk of our city’s history.

The good news is, it’s not too late. Many of the relics survive and are begging for renovation. And we can always build more. At the very least, it’s my hope that other companies throughout Los Angeles will join the fight to preserve this art form, refitting existing retro-style buildings and even putting new ones up.

After all, the future is now.