Still Deco after all these years: Robert Landau's L.A. images showcase the enduring style

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Art Deco has ne'er truly gone retired of style: Even aft a century, the zigzag meanders, suave ladies and elegant lines associated with it inactive specify sophistication.

The benignant gained popularity aft being showcased astatine the Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes successful 1925, and to coincide with that centennial, West Hollywood’s Denenberg Fine Arts Gallery has mounted an grounds showcasing lensman Robert Landau’s caller book, “Art Deco Los Angeles.” In summation to Landau’s photos of beloved landmarks, immoderate acquainted and immoderate reduced to rubble agelong ago, the Angel City Press tome includes an effort by writer and architecture historiographer Alan Hess astir the 20th period benignant known for bold geometric shapes.

“I was responding visually and emotionally to places I grew up going to,” Landau tells The Times of his photography, mentioning Pan-Pacific Auditorium arsenic 1 specified place. “Went determination arsenic a kid to spot Harlem Globetrotters,” helium says of the sprawling Fairfax District operation adjacent the Farmers Market that was destroyed by occurrence successful 1989. “The ’20s, ’30s, ’40s was an breathtaking time, and radical were inspired by the dynamics of things similar automobiles and technology, and besides making architecture that was amusive and engaging.”

Designed by Wurdeman & Becket successful 1935, the Pan-Pacific’s Streamline Moderne aesthetic echoed the Motorama car shows that were erstwhile held there. A low-rise sprawling structure, it was an illustration of an L.A. iteration of Deco — horizontal versus the vertical benignant recovered successful astir cities.

Eastern Columbia Building, present Eastern Columbia Lofts

“We person smaller-scale Deco here,” observes Margot Gerber, enforcement manager of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles. “For a agelong time, it was 1 oregon 2 stories, a sprawling metropolis. We utilized to person 150-foot tallness limits, but exertion evolved truthful we tin person taller buildings successful L.A.”

Also successful the book: the Mauretania, a low-rise flat gathering designed successful 1934 by Milton J. Black successful a Streamline Moderne benignant that references the British luxury liner of that name, which acceptable a transatlantic velocity grounds successful 1909. The 10-unit, stucco operation surrounds an unfastened courtyard and is topped by an extended penthouse wherever “Wizard of Oz” Tin Man Jack Haley erstwhile lived.

Los Angeles Central Library, photographed successful 1988

Other low-rise examples successful the publication see the Los Angeles Central Library (Goodhue and Winslow, 1926), Union Station (Parkinson and Parkinson, 1929) and the Griffith Observatory (Austin and Ashley, 1935), each emblematic of L.A. Deco.

Ornamentation connected buildings has been astir for arsenic agelong arsenic buildings, but the roots of Art Deco benignant are often traced to the enactment of Frank Lloyd Wright, his mentor Louis Sullivan and movements similar Art Nouveau, Bauhaus and the Vienna Secession.

A Gilmore work presumption astatine 859. N. Highland Ave. present dispenses Starbucks coffee.

“You tin spot wherever they simplified each forms and took it retired of what it had been successful the classical play oregon the Victorian Age,” notes Gerber. “You look astatine Art Deco and it’s lighter, truthful black-and-white and truthful graphic.”

The publication besides includes humble homes, similar 1 connected Hudson and Larchmont that features a play stained-glass model but whose interior was remodeled successful the Midcentury Modern style. Storefronts similar the deserted Long Beach commercialized gathering connected North Atlantic Street are besides pictured on with state stations and tyre shops repurposed arsenic eateries and java shops.

The Wiltern and Pellissier Building, located astatine 3790 Wilshire Blvd., was built successful 1931 and photographed successful 2002.

Too galore structures person been mislaid implicit the years, nary arsenic achy arsenic the 1969 razing of the Richfield Tower, a 1929 bureau gathering successful downtown L.A. designed by Morgan, Walls & Clements, the steadfast besides down the Mayan Theater, Pellissier Building and the Wiltern.

“It’s progressively hard due to the fact that of authorities mandates for housing. And a batch of limitations connected improvement person been lifted,” says Gerber astir the combat to sphere these architectural gems.

Son of an L.A. gallerist, Landau began photographing the metropolis successful the precocious 1960s.

She and others fought to get the Fairfax Theatre designated arsenic a taste monument, but contempt that successful campaign the proprietor demolished the theater’s interior, leaving lone the Art Deco facade, arsenic required by law, with an unfastened pit down it.

Among the galore Art Deco casualties are the Pacific Theatre connected Wilshire (demolished 1988), Wilshire Bowl/Slapsy Maxie’s (demolished 1952), the Mole-Richardson Studio Depot connected LaBrea (demolished 2014), Simon’s Drive-In Restaurant (demolished 1971) and the Four Star Theatre Building connected Wilshire (demolished 2015).

“There’s a batch we thought were landmarked but conscionable due to the fact that you get designation does not mean the gathering cannot beryllium torn down. You tin teardrop down wrong a twelvemonth of its nomination. Our anticipation is the benignant of publicity we get with these buildings, they’ll go icons,” says Gerber.

“L.A. has not had a precise bully past of respecting its past, possibly due to the fact that it’s inactive a comparatively young city,” Landau says. “The May Co., they could person easy knocked that down and enactment a container there, but they didn’t and present it’s the Academy Museum. The nationalist is coming astir to knowing that a batch of these modern buildings that are enactment up don’t lucifer successful quality oregon prime immoderate of these buildings from the past.”

A May Company section store has been transformed into the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The lad of L.A. gallerist Felix Landau, Robert began photographing the metropolis successful the precocious 1960s. Previous books see “Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip” and “Outrageous L.A.” The earlier images successful his caller publication were changeable connected a Hasselblad successful the 1970s and ’80s. For aboriginal images helium utilized a Nikon D700.

“I grew up a black-and-white guy,” helium says. “My heroes were the European thoroughfare photographers — Atget, Kertész, Bresson. But here, the elements successful the municipality scenery are designed for cars driving by and they’re screaming for attention, and colour is simply a large portion of that. I bash a batch of my shooting connected weekends, Sunday mornings, and precocious successful the day. The airy comes done the atmosphere, sometimes smog, and you get color.”

Popular with the nationalist successful its day, Art Deco was rejected by the creation and world assemblage successful favour of the International Style, a sleek, minimalist sensibility seen successful the works of practitioners similar Richard Neutra and Philip Johnson, curator of a landmark 1932 MoMA amusement connected the subject. Yet it has endured.

“People rejected Deco successful the ’50s due to the fact that it seemed similar thing that was aged schoolhouse and they wanted thing to bash with it. But it didn’t die,” observes Gerber. “The Oscars, the past 5 years, person done a precise circumstantial elegant Art Deco benignant to their set. Now the benignant is synonymous with timeless elegance. I don’t deliberation it ever truly disappeared.”

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