This year marks the centennial of the Art Deco movement, which was defined at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. The architectural style made its way to the States in the 1920s and 1930s, where it found purchase in booming Los Angeles. When driving around LA 100 years later, many of these Art Deco buildings still stand tall amongst the palm trees, a key component of the diverse tapestry of architectural styles the city is known for.
The Sunset Tower Hotel on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles
While many of these Art Deco beacons have endured, nothing is safe in LA in 2025, and there’s ever-present concern that some of these relics won’t make it. That’s why the work of photographer Robert Landau is so important, on top of simply being stunning. The native Angeleno captures the city’s architectural splendor and finds himself naturally drawn to Art Deco structures. Early this month, he released a book of these photographs entitled Art Deco Los Angeles with Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library. With a foreword by architect and historian Alan Hess and book design from Frans Evenhuis, Art Deco Los Angeles is a critical resource chock-full of Art Deco eye candy. Landau elaborates on the book and his relationship with the architectural style below.
(Interview lightly edited for length and clarity.)
Why is photographing architecture in LA particularly important to you?
I’ve never thought of myself as an architectural photographer, however, I have always been fascinated with trying to capture and illuminate the hard-to-define cultural character of Los Angeles. I was born here and have been photographing LA for many decades now. This city has a lot of wildly disparate facets, and I seem to be drawn to seeking out and photographing one-of-a-kind elements in the cityscape that artistically capture and reflect the spirit of the time they were created. In the 1970s, it was the hand-painted billboards of rock and roll royalty that dominated the Sunset Strip for that decade. That work was published in my earlier book, Rock n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip (Angel City Press).
Hollyhock House (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1921) 4800 Hollywood Blvd. Photographed 2024 by Robert Landau.
What is it about Art Deco architecture that fascinates you so much?
When I’m out shooting in the city, I generally let my eye dictate what to focus on, based on the interests and instincts that I have honed. While recently combing through my archives of many thousands of images, mostly shot on color transparency film, I was astonished to see how many photographs of Art Deco buildings, structures, and details I had made over the years. Without being overtly conscious of it, and certainly without any academic training in the subject, I was intuitively drawn to the unique shapes, colors, materials, elegant forms and the sheer joy of Art Deco’s energetic style.
Los Angeles Central Library (Bertram G. Goodhue and Carleton Winslow, 1926) 630 W. 5th St. Photographed 1988 by Robert Landau.
Without being overtly conscious of it, and certainly without any academic training in the subject, I was intuitively drawn to the unique shapes, colors, materials, elegant forms and the sheer joy of Art Deco’s energetic style.
Now, with the guidance of Angel City Press editorial director Terri Accomazzo, and the outstanding design work of Frans Evenhuis, these images have become the subject of my new book, Art Book Deco Los Angeles. I wrote an Afterword for the book describing my approach, but understanding that this collection of images deserved a more architecturally informed text, architect and author Alan Hess provided a highly relevant essay as the Foreword.
Similar to what the rock n’ roll billboards accomplished in LA in the 1970s, Art Deco architecture accomplished in the 1920s, 30s and 40s: they spoke artistically and essentially about the culture and times that produced them. The difference between the two being that those homages to rock era icons were painted over with newer messages and vanished within weeks of being created, while the vast majority of the Art Deco buildings seen in my book are still standing, some hundred years later.
Pan Pacific Auditorium before demolition
Do you feel a responsibility to preserve buildings and other aspects of LA through your photography that might be demolished?
Los Angeles, as a still relatively young city, has not always had a deep respect for its own history. Some incredible buildings, even entire historic neighborhoods, have vanished under the guise of progress. It’s my opinion that the great cities that have stood over time are great because, while they continue to grow and change, they also respect and preserve what is great from their past. I believe it’s the layering of styles and the presence of buildings from different eras, sometimes side by side, that makes cities interesting, gives them texture, and creates the personality that makes them unlike anywhere else. That’s why honoring and preserving these structures that have survived for close to a hundred years now is so important and a responsibility we all share.
To that point, there’s a recent trend I’m beginning to notice whereby abandoned Art Deco era structures, instead of being demolished and replaced, are being repurposed and restored. An obvious example of this is the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is housed in the Art Deco shell of the old May Co. department store on Wilshire Blvd. Other examples include a classic movie theater on Manchester Blvd. in Inglewood that’s now a neighborhood church, and a pristine 1930s-era Texaco gas station that is currently serving fresh lobster to patrons pulling up in their cars to a spot where gas pumps once stood. I think the shift has come with the general public’s realization that the style and craftsmanship of many older buildings, particularly when compared to contemporary structures of lesser quality, deserve to be maintained.
I believe it’s the layering of styles and the presence of buildings from different eras, sometimes side by side, that makes cities interesting, gives them texture, and creates the personality that makes them unlike anywhere else.
Saban Building, formerly May Company Department Store, now Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (A. C. Martin & Associates and Samuel Marx, 1939) 6067 Wilshire Blvd. Photographed 2024 by Robert Landau.
Can you point to a single structure in LA that serves as a beacon of Art Deco mastery? A personal favorite you think captures the magic of the Art Deco style?
As a photographer, I really enjoy seeking out or stumbling across these Art Deco gems that are hiding in plain sight within the chaos of the LA cityscape, particularly the lesser-known examples. But my favorite Art Deco building in Los Angeles remains the turquoise and gold Eastern Columbia building on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.
I’ve never lost my fascination with its shape, color, and intrinsic visual appeal. Without this building and other great art deco structures from our past, our city and our daily lives would be poorer.
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