LA’s most fantastical architecture

LA’s most fantastical architecture From an elegant, stylised observatory to a retro-futurist tower, Los Angeles excels at cool modernism and swooping, space-age buildings. Alamy The elegant Griffith Observatory nods to Art Deco, and features a rocket-shaped monument outside But when it comes to cultural spaces, it’s impossible not to fall for one of the city’s most loved buildings, John C Austin and Frederick Ashley’s winningly elegant Griffith Park Observatory and Planetarium. Alamy Frank Lloyd Wright’s coolly modernist Hollyhock House is distinctively Californian The heiress’s loss was LA’s gain, and Hollyhock House, completed in 1921, is the crown jewel of Barnsdall Art Park – and what a jewel it is. Capitol Records Building If you could isolate LA’s architectural DNA – something that feels truly unique to the city – it would probably be so-called ‘Googie’, a self-consciously fun, futuristic mid-century style full of swooping lines, streamlined shapes and eye-popping colours that sought to capture the excitement of the space age in architectural form. Getty Images The Capitol tower was the world’s first circular office building, and is topped by a steel spire originally intended as a radio mast The spire even features a red light that blinks out ‘Hollywood’ in Morse code As with all Googie, form beats out function: this is a brand as much as a building, the symbolic flagship of Capitol’s West Coast operation, and its silhouette featured on record sleeves for many years.