Capital Records Tower B W Hollywood Landmark Building Los Angeles California Art

by Reid Callaway

Title

Capital Records Tower B W Hollywood Landmark Building Los Angeles California Art

Artist

Reid Callaway

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Capital Records Tower B W.....by Reid Callaway
Hollywood Landmark Building
Los Angeles California Art

The Capitol Records Building, also known as the Capitol Records Tower, is a Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District building that is located in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The building is a thirteen-story tower that was designed by Louis Naidorf (who was working at Welton Becket Associates at the time), and is one of the city's landmarks. Construction occurred soon after British company EMI acquired Capitol Records in 1955, and was completed in April 1956. Located just north of the Hollywood and Vine intersection, the Capitol Records Tower houses the consolidation of Capitol Records' West Coast operations and is home to the recording studios and echo chambers of Capitol Studios. The building is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

The basis for the building's design is on the graduate school drawings of Lou Naidorf who, as the primary architect, designed the first circular office building when he was twenty-four years old. The wide curved awnings over windows on each story and the tall spike emerging from the top of the building resembles a stack of records on a turntable with the spindle pointing skyward. The rectangular ground floor is a separate structure, joined to the tower after completion.

The tower incorporates thirteen stories to conform to the 150-foot (46 m) zoning height limit that was in place at the time of its construction. Height restrictions were lifted in 1956. The thirteenth floor of the tower is the "Executive Level" and is represented by an "E" in the building's two elevators.

Notable features….
The blinking light atop the tower spells out the word "Hollywood" in Morse code. This was an idea of Capitol's then-president, Alan Livingston, who wanted to advertise Capitol's status as the first record label with a base on the west coast. Leila Morse activated the switch, granddaughter of Samuel Morse. During the year 1992, the light changed to read "Capitol 50," in honor of the label's fiftieth anniversary. A black-and-white graphic image of the building appeared on the albums of many Capitol recording artists, with the phrase, "From the Sound Capitol of the World".
In April 2011, Capitol Records and artist Richard Wyatt Jr. collaborated to restore his iconic Hollywood Jazz Mural on the south wall of the Capitol Records building. Restored in hand-glazed ceramic tile, the mural spans 26 by 88 feet. Entitled "Hollywood Jazz: 1945-1972", this masterpiece presents “larger than life” images of a number of notable jazz musicians.

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March 23rd, 2018

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