Hollywood Midcentury Modern Design

This walk showcases the bold, space-age architecture and iconic post-war designs of the 1950s and 60s along Sunset and Vine.

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1. Hollywood Center Motel

The Hollywood Center Motel is defined by a towering marquee sign that remains from its mid-century years, standing above a property marked by breeze block walls and an L-shaped layout. Originally, this lot held a Shingle-style home built…

2. 6430 Sunset Blvd

The fourteen-story steel and glass tower at sixty-four thirty Sunset Boulevard rises above the intersection of Sunset and North Cahuenga. Constructed in nineteen sixty-eight, the building was designed by architect Maxwell Starkman. For…

3. Cinerama Dome

The Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard is instantly recognizable by its exterior of three hundred sixteen interlocking concrete panels. These hexagons and pentagons create a distinct, honeycomb-like geodesic sphere that rises over the…

4. Hollywood Palladium

The Hollywood Palladium is defined by its Streamline Moderne exterior, featuring a vertical pylon sign and two neon-outlined silhouettes of a man and a woman dancing on the facade. Built in nineteen forty on the former site of the…

5. CBS Columbia Square

CBS Columbia Square is defined by its clean, white International Style architecture, featuring sweeping horizontal lines, ribbon windows, and glass block walls that still stand out along Sunset Boulevard. Designed by the Swiss-born…

6. Sunset Vine Tower Apartments

The Sunset Vine Tower at the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street is a twenty-story high-rise recognized as the first skyscraper built in Los Angeles after the city lifted its fourteen-story height limit in nineteen sixty.…

7. Chase Bank

The former Hollywood Home Savings and Loan, now a Chase Bank, occupies the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street. You can identify the two-story New Formalist building by its white travertine cladding and the elaborate mosaic mural…

8. Capitol Studios

The Capitol Records Building is a thirteen-story circular tower that rises above the intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Completed in April nineteen fifty-six, the structure was designed by architect Louis Naidorf to resemble a stack of…

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