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United States Court House (Los Angeles, 1940)
Encyclopedia
The United States Court House in Downtown Los Angeles
is a Moderne
style building that originally served as both a post office and a courthouse
. The building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood
and Louis A. Simon, and construction was completed in 1940.
The United States Court House initially housed court facilities for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California
, until the District was redrawn in 1966. It thereafter functioned as a court house with judges from the United States District Court for the Central District of California
. There is another federal court house in the Roybal Building in Downtown Los Angeles. In February 2006, the U.S. Court House and Post Office was added to the National Register of Historic Places
.
Gilbert Stanley Underwood was selected to design the building as consulting architect to the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. The actual plans were prepared by the Supervising Architect's Office. Underwood was acclaimed for his public architecture. His work includes lodges in National Parks, over two dozen post offices, a number of federal courthouses, and the magnificent United States Mint in San Francisco
.
The original plan specified a fifteen-story building. Even before construction began in May 1937, the Treasury Department realized two more floors would be needed. Congress did not appropriate the additional funding until the initial fifteen-story building was finished in January 1939. The building's top two stories and penthouse were added between April 1939 and March 1940. At the time of its completion, it was the largest federal building in the western United States. The post office, located on the ground and first floors, moved to another site in 1965. The expanding U.S. District Court then took over the space.
The United States Courthouse has been the venue for a number of notable court cases, beginning in the 1940s with paternity cases against Clark Gable
and Charlie Chaplin
, and a breach of contract suit filed by Bette Davis
against Warner Brothers. The House Un-American Activities Committee
met in the building in 1947 to gather information on Hollywood personalities suspected of Communist involvement. In 1973 the federal government case against Daniel Ellsberg
for leaking the "Pentagon Papers" was heard in the courthouse.
with pink swirls is used for the steps, retaining wall
s, and walkway borders. Above a polished granite base, the seventeen-story steel-frame building is clad with a pale pink matte-glazed terra-cotta veneer. It is rectangular in plan, and steps back at the fourth and sixth stories. Above this rises a slab-like tower with a central two-story penthouse. The window openings are organized in vertical strips and set back from the facades. Sandblasted aluminum spandrels separate the paired double-hung windows. The roofs are flat and concealed by tall parapets.
The main entrance, which faces Spring Street, is three stories high and recessed behind fluted columns. Each of the five entrance doorways consists of a pair of bronze doors capped by a projecting curved hood bearing a stylized eagle. Above each doorway, an elaborate aluminum grille extends to the full height of the bay. These grilles are decorated with flowers and the seals of five U.S. Government departments: State, Treasury, War, Justice, and Post Office.
The opposite elevation, which faces Main Street, is similar, but has an additional lower story due to the slope of the site, and three entry bays rather than five. This elevation bears the seals of five additional federal departments: Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor.
The Spring Street and Main Street lobbies have retained most of their original finishes and furnishings. These include polychrome terrazzo floors, ornamental plaster ceilings, and ornate aluminum light fixtures. The Main Street lobby has an oval plan and has walls of Tennessee brown marble with golden Sienna travertine accents and engaged columns of black and gold marble from Montana. The floor contains an inlaid, eight-pointed starburst design, in red, yellow and green terrazzo with Cardiff green marble accents. Two statues stand at opposite ends of the lobby. "Law," depicting a young woman with a tablet, is by Archibald Garner. The other titled "Young Lincoln" is by James Lee Hansen. The Spring Street lobby, which originally accommodated the post office, is larger, with a rectangular plan, and has a higher ceiling than the Main Street lobby. It is similar to the Spring Street lobby in its finishes. Four murals, originally installed in this lobby, were removed when the post office moved out. Two by Lucien Labaudt (Life on the Old Spanish and Mexican Ranchos, and Aeroydynamism) and one by Edward Biberman
(Los Angeles Prehistoric Spanish Colonial) have been returned.
Eight original courtrooms for the U.S. District Court are located on the second floor. Designed according to four different plans, they are all three stories in height and similarly finished with walnut wainscoting and plaster ceilings bordered by various geometric designs such as stars, waves, and squares. The courtroom of the United States Court of Appeals on the sixteenth floor is also finished in walnut, with a plaster ceiling, but has less elaborate detailing than the second-floor courtrooms.
One of Los Angeles' most distinguished buildings, the United States Courthouse is directly on axis with, and complements, the massing of the twenty-eight-story Los Angeles City Hall
(1926–1928), located across Temple Street to the south. It is also across the street from the fourteen-story Classical Revival-style Hall of Justice (1925).
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
is a Moderne
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
style building that originally served as both a post office and a courthouse
Courthouse
A courthouse is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English speaking countries, buildings which house courts of law are simply...
. The building was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood
Gilbert Stanley Underwood
Gilbert Stanley Underwood was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that year, he became associated with Daniel Ray Hull of the National...
and Louis A. Simon, and construction was completed in 1940.
The United States Court House initially housed court facilities for the United States District Court for the Southern District of California
United States District Court for the Southern District of California
The United States District Court for the Southern District of California is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties in California: Imperial and San Diego. In terms of filed indictments, it is one of the busiest criminal districts in the United States...
, until the District was redrawn in 1966. It thereafter functioned as a court house with judges from the United States District Court for the Central District of California
United States District Court for the Central District of California
The United States District Court for the Central District of California serves over 18 million people in southern and central California, making it the largest federal judicial district by population...
. There is another federal court house in the Roybal Building in Downtown Los Angeles. In February 2006, the U.S. Court House and Post Office was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Building history
Built between 1937 and 1940 , it was the third federal building constructed in Los Angeles. The first, constructed between 1889 and 1892, housed the post office, U.S. District Court, and various federal agencies, but it soon proved inadequate. A larger structure was built between 1906 and 1910 at the corner of Main and Temple Streets. The population of Los Angeles grew rapidly in the early part of the twentieth century, and a larger building was needed to serve the courts and federal agencies. The second federal building was razed in 1937 to clear the site for the existing courthouse.Gilbert Stanley Underwood was selected to design the building as consulting architect to the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department. The actual plans were prepared by the Supervising Architect's Office. Underwood was acclaimed for his public architecture. His work includes lodges in National Parks, over two dozen post offices, a number of federal courthouses, and the magnificent United States Mint in San Francisco
San Francisco Mint
The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint, and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874. This building, the Old United States Mint, also known affectionately as The Granite Lady,...
.
The original plan specified a fifteen-story building. Even before construction began in May 1937, the Treasury Department realized two more floors would be needed. Congress did not appropriate the additional funding until the initial fifteen-story building was finished in January 1939. The building's top two stories and penthouse were added between April 1939 and March 1940. At the time of its completion, it was the largest federal building in the western United States. The post office, located on the ground and first floors, moved to another site in 1965. The expanding U.S. District Court then took over the space.
The United States Courthouse has been the venue for a number of notable court cases, beginning in the 1940s with paternity cases against Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
and Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, and a breach of contract suit filed by Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
against Warner Brothers. The House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
met in the building in 1947 to gather information on Hollywood personalities suspected of Communist involvement. In 1973 the federal government case against Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War,...
for leaking the "Pentagon Papers" was heard in the courthouse.
Architecture
Located on a landscaped one-acre site bounded by Spring, Main, Temple and Aliso Streets in the Los Angeles Civic Center, the courthouse is a major example of Art Moderne architecture, characterized by its stepped rectangular massing and restrained use of exterior ornamentation. Dark gray graniteGranite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
with pink swirls is used for the steps, retaining wall
Retaining wall
Retaining walls are built in order to hold back earth which would otherwise move downwards. Their purpose is to stabilize slopes and provide useful areas at different elevations, e.g...
s, and walkway borders. Above a polished granite base, the seventeen-story steel-frame building is clad with a pale pink matte-glazed terra-cotta veneer. It is rectangular in plan, and steps back at the fourth and sixth stories. Above this rises a slab-like tower with a central two-story penthouse. The window openings are organized in vertical strips and set back from the facades. Sandblasted aluminum spandrels separate the paired double-hung windows. The roofs are flat and concealed by tall parapets.
The main entrance, which faces Spring Street, is three stories high and recessed behind fluted columns. Each of the five entrance doorways consists of a pair of bronze doors capped by a projecting curved hood bearing a stylized eagle. Above each doorway, an elaborate aluminum grille extends to the full height of the bay. These grilles are decorated with flowers and the seals of five U.S. Government departments: State, Treasury, War, Justice, and Post Office.
The opposite elevation, which faces Main Street, is similar, but has an additional lower story due to the slope of the site, and three entry bays rather than five. This elevation bears the seals of five additional federal departments: Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor.
The Spring Street and Main Street lobbies have retained most of their original finishes and furnishings. These include polychrome terrazzo floors, ornamental plaster ceilings, and ornate aluminum light fixtures. The Main Street lobby has an oval plan and has walls of Tennessee brown marble with golden Sienna travertine accents and engaged columns of black and gold marble from Montana. The floor contains an inlaid, eight-pointed starburst design, in red, yellow and green terrazzo with Cardiff green marble accents. Two statues stand at opposite ends of the lobby. "Law," depicting a young woman with a tablet, is by Archibald Garner. The other titled "Young Lincoln" is by James Lee Hansen. The Spring Street lobby, which originally accommodated the post office, is larger, with a rectangular plan, and has a higher ceiling than the Main Street lobby. It is similar to the Spring Street lobby in its finishes. Four murals, originally installed in this lobby, were removed when the post office moved out. Two by Lucien Labaudt (Life on the Old Spanish and Mexican Ranchos, and Aeroydynamism) and one by Edward Biberman
Edward Biberman
Edward Biberman was an American artist active in the mid-twentieth century. His work ranged from stylised portraits to history-inspired murals, and drew on the emerging urban landscapes of southern California, and on current events such as the Great Depression, the Second World War, and labour...
(Los Angeles Prehistoric Spanish Colonial) have been returned.
Eight original courtrooms for the U.S. District Court are located on the second floor. Designed according to four different plans, they are all three stories in height and similarly finished with walnut wainscoting and plaster ceilings bordered by various geometric designs such as stars, waves, and squares. The courtroom of the United States Court of Appeals on the sixteenth floor is also finished in walnut, with a plaster ceiling, but has less elaborate detailing than the second-floor courtrooms.
One of Los Angeles' most distinguished buildings, the United States Courthouse is directly on axis with, and complements, the massing of the twenty-eight-story Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall, completed 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council...
(1926–1928), located across Temple Street to the south. It is also across the street from the fourteen-story Classical Revival-style Hall of Justice (1925).
Significant events
- 1889-1892: The first federal building is constructed in Los Angeles.
- 1906-1910: As the first building proves inadequate, a larger, six-story federal building is built on the site of the existing U.S. Courthouse.
- 1937-1940: The U.S. Post Office and Courthouse (later known as the U.S. Courthouse) is constructed.
- 1940s: The courthouse is the venue for several high-profile Hollywood cases, including paternity suits against Charles Chaplin and Clark Gable.
- 1947: As anti-Communist fervor hits Hollywood, the House Un-American Activities Committee convenes in the building.
- 1965: The post office relocates. The first floor and portions of the Spring Street lobby are altered.
- 1993: Lucien Labaudt's Life on the Old Spanish and Mexican Ranchos and Aeroydynamism are returned to the Spring Street lobby.
- 2003: Edward Biberman's Los Angeles Prehistoric Spanish Colonial is returned to the Spring Street lobby.
Building facts
- Architect: Gilbert Stanley Underwood
- Construction Dates: 1937-1940
- Landmark Status: Determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places
- Location: 312 North Spring Street, in the Los Angeles Civic Center
- Architectural Style: Art Moderne
- Primary Materials: Polished granite and glazed terra-cotta
- Prominent Features: Stepped massing and ornamental aluminum grilles; sculptures in Main Street lobby; murals in Spring Street lobby