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| Pacific Life Building (1972) in Newport Beach, designed by William Pereira |
Last week, we looked at some paintings of the Theme Building at LAX. This brought to my mind other buildings that the architect, William Pereira, has created across the Southland.
Over the course of the last month, I've come across a few of Pereira's works. None are as awesome as the Theme Building, but they are classics of mid-century modernism, embodying a futuristic aesthetic, stretching up into the sky like science fiction ziggurats. The Pacific Life Building, which is across the street from the Orange County Museum of Art, is one of my favorites, as its inverted pyramidal form seems to defy gravity.
Of course, buildings rarely remain unaltered in Los Angeles. This is the situation with two of the structures in today's post.
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| Ahmanson Building at the LA County Museum of Art (1965) |
When the LACMA campus was originally designed by William Pereira, the buildings were intended to loom over a series of reflecting pools, like rising islands of art. Although decades of renovation and expansion have built over the pools, the upward, vertical sense of emergence is still perceptible in the lines of the Ahmanson Building.
