The Bradbury Building

As described by the folks at USC -

The Bradbury Building, built in 1893, is one of Southern California's most remarkable architectural achievements. Its plan was commissioned by real estate and mining entrepreneur Louis L. Bradbury who decided to build it just a few blocks from his home on fashionable Bunker Hill and not far from the base of Angels Flight. After rejecting a plan submitted by Sumner P. Hunt, Bradbury approached junior draftsman George Wyman. Wyman is said to have accepted the commission after consulting a ouija board. Wyman was influenced by Edward Bellamy's 1887 book that described a utopian civilization in the year 2000. The typical office building was described as being a "vast hall of light received not alone by the windows, but from a dome overhead." The interior of the court is flooded with natural light. In the true spirit of Los Angles, it has been featured in many movies, from DOA in 1946 to Blade Runner in 1982.

Kenneth Frampton and Yukio Futagawa - Modern Architecture 1851-1945 (page 60) –

The unique work of an otherwise conservative career, this daring and unusual office building owes as much to the remarkable vision of Wyman's patron Louis Bradbury, a self-made mining tycoon, as it does to an autodidact architect's exceptional talent.

...the Bradbury Building is unique not only for its dramatically projecting stair and lift towers, but also for its glazed hydraulic elevators giving access to the various office floors. These constructions serve to animate the volume of the court movement; a lively effect compounded of light filtering through the stair landings and of the oscillation of the elevator cabins. By way of contrast, the exterior of the building is traditional, being built of a mixture of sandstone and dressed brickwork.

From the Los Angeles Downtown News -

Designed by a $5-a-week draftsman named George Wyman, who had neither an architecture degree nor experience, the $500,000 Bradbury has nonetheless caused generations to marvel at its Eclectic Victorian Pre-Modern design. The untrained architect took the job on advice from his dead brother via Ouija board, and was influenced by the 1887 best-selling book, Looking Backward, by Edward Bellamy - a Victorian's view of what a futuristic building would look like in the year 2000. (It was featured in the film Blade Runner.) To add to the building's mystique, Wyman never again designed a building of significance, in Los Angeles or anywhere else.

Detailed history here - the Los Angeles Conservancy here - and see the notes at the bottom of the page on the films and such.  All photos, Thursday, January 26, 2006.

          Interior: