Monday, May 4, 2009

Los Angeles City Hall Souvenir Building

Microcosm’s produced a heafty souvenir building replica of the L.A. City Hall in the 1990’s. Measuring 5.5 inches tall, the replica building’s base reads Los Angeles City Hall on front. InFocus Tech also created and currently sells L.A. City Hall souvenir buildings. In a city known for its earthquakes, designers kept this fact in mind during construction of the real L.A. City Hall. Each floor of the 454-foot building is separated by a flexible compression zone. The resulting form is not unlike the human spine with its ability to twist and shake and still return to its original form. Designed by John Parkinson, John C. Austin, and Albert C. Martin, Sr., and was completed in 1928. Los Angeles City Hall is the tallest base isolated structure in the world. It is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California. It houses the mayor's office as well as the meeting chambers of the Los Angeles City Council.The concrete in its tower was made with sand from each of California's 58 counties and water from its 21 historical missions The city hall's distinctive tower was based on the purported shape of the Mausoleum of Maussollos and shows the influence of the Los Angeles Public Library, completed soon before the City Hall was started. An image of City Hall has been on Los Angeles Police Department badges since 1940. (Remember Dragnet’s badges?) Due in part to seismic concerns, prior to the late 1950s the City of Los Angeles did not permit any portion of any building other than a purely decorative tower to be more than 150 feet (46 m) high Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until 1964, the City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles and shared the skyline with only a few structures having decorative towers, including the Richfield Tower and the Eastern Columbia Building. The building was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976. An observation level is open to the public on the 27th floor. True to Hollywood, the L.A. City hall has been seen in such TV shows as Superman, Dragnet, Alias, Adam-12 and was destroyed by the 19563 version of War of the Worlds. Do you know of other miniature buildings made of the L.A. City Hall?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There is the Bookend version of the City Hall in the building book. SD

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