Google. Revival of the task. mid-century modern. Eastlake Victorian. Chatewysk. Simplify the conversation. art deco. Spanish. Moroccan Spanish. Spanish colonial revival. The Monterrey Colonial Revival. Choregorsk. Fine arts. Hollywood Regency. What city boasts a more diverse architectural spread than Los Angeles?
Here’s a guide to 16 styles you might encounter around town on any given day.
1. Victorian
The word “Victorian” actually refers to an era, the reign of Queen Victoria, which lasted from 1837 to 1901, and encompasses a variety of styles. Common styles found today in neighborhoods like Angeleno Heights or West Adams include Queen Anne, Eastlake, and Folk—or a combination of multiple styles.
Notable Practitioners: Joseph Cather Newsom Frederic Rohrig
How to identify:
Queen Anne: The most prolific of all Victorian styles, Queen Annes is asymmetric, often featuring turrets and turrets, round or octagonal rooms, elaborate spindlework, fish scale siding, and carved stonework.
Eastlake: Eastlake structures are one to two stories high, and have steeply pitched roofs with gables, rectangular windows, decorative arches, elaborate cladding with curved timber, and curved timber arches over the entrances.
people: Consistent and relatively easy-going, popular Victorian homes were generally built for the working and middle class, using planning books published by architectural firms. Its features include gabled roofs and front porches decorated with prefabricated ornaments.
2. literal
Originating in England, the Arts and Crafts movement emphasized unity with nature and precious handmade details over the cheap mass production of the Industrial Revolution. Distinctive features of artisan huts include low-pitched roofs, gabled or hinged roofs, overhanging eaves, shaded porticos, extensive woodwork, double hinged windows, and Batchelder tile fireplaces.
Notable Practitioners: Charles and Henry Green; Ernst Batchelder Arthur and Alfred Heinemann
3. Fine Art
Beaux Arts are seen in downtown temples for finance, commerce, and law, a classic style characterized by Greco-Roman elements: columns, arches, vaults, and domes. The buildings are constructed with high-quality materials such as limestone, while the interiors are decorated to impress with marble, mahogany, alabaster, terrazzo, bronze, and copper. Exterior decorations include relief carvings and glazed terra cotta tiles.
Notable Practitioners: John and Donald Parkinson. Walker Wiesen. Corlett and Bellman. Gordon S. Kaufman
4. Revive the mission
Influenced by the Alta California Franciscan missions, these buildings feature low sloping roofs with red terracotta tiles, plain stucco exteriors, and mission-style arches and lattices.
Notable Practitioners: Arthur Benton Arthur Paige Brown John Byers
5. Spanish Colonial Revival
It became the preeminent architectural style of Southern California in the wake of the 1915-1917 Panama-California Exposition. To house the San Diego Gallery, architects Bertram Goodhue and Carleton Winslow designed a campus of buildings that blend elements of Mission Revival, Mexican, Spanish Baroque/Churigueresque, and Islamic styles. This unique mixture was a resounding success, and soon homes with low red-tiled roofs, courtyards, white stucco walls with rounded corners, painted tiles, wrought-iron accents, and arched windows and doorways became a sight everywhere.
Notable Practitioners: Elmer Gray Myron Hunt Wallace Neff Reginald Johnson George Washington Smith Paul R. Williams
Many Spanish-style architectural forms contribute to the unique flavor of the local landscape. Here’s how to identify them:
Spanish-Moroccan: Distinctive elements of this style include horseshoe or ogee arches, ornamental stone and carved wood with geometric or floral motifs, and decorative tiles, as seen in Malibu’s Adamson House, Andalusia Apartments in West Hollywood, and at Shrine Auditorium.
Notable Practitioners: John C. Austin; Stiles; O. Clements; Arthur and Nina Zwebel.
Monterrey Colonial Revival: A mixture of Mexican, New England Colonial, and Spanish styles, Monterey Revival homes are two-story, featuring second-floor verandas with wooden balustrades, stucco or thick stucco walls, and slotted shutters (although they are often stationary).
Notable Practitioners: Roland Cote Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury; Reginald D Johnson
6. Churrigueresque
Named after the 18th-century Spanish architect José Benito de Churriguera, Churrigueresque architecture features very glowing sculptural decorations. Meant to awe the observer, the detailed and textile stucco work of Churrigueresque buildings often features broken arches, upturned columns, scrolls, garlands, and layer upon layer of curved surfaces. Los Angeles’ interpretation of theatrical style can be seen at St. Vincent de Paul’s Church in West Adams, the Million Dollar Theater downtown, and at Chapman Plaza in Koreatown.
Notable Practitioners: Albert C. Martin; Stiles O. Clements
7. Googie
While Southern California is rich in architectural diversity, Googie—the embodiment of the collision of car culture and the jet-set era that flourished after World War II—arguably is the region’s signature style. Cantilevered ceilings, starbursts, and solid angles are all themes in Googie architecture. Googie’s designs were geared toward getting the drivers’ attention, getting them to slow down and get in. Googie captured a post-war high that made people feel that the future was now and that they lived in it. Over time, Googie came to reflect the 1950s and 1960s view of what “the future” means.
Notable Practitioners: Armitt and Davis Martin Stern Jr. John Lautner Pereira & Co
8. Bungalow Courts
Introduced in 1909 by Pasadena architect Sylvanus Marston, this form of multi-family rental housing in which a group of small, detached structures are clustered around a central common courtyard, were quickly replicated throughout Southland in a wide variety of architectural styles. Its heyday was cut short by World War II, after which high-density apartment buildings became the model of choice.
At present, only 350 obsolete single-story buildings remain, with these strongholds increasingly threatened by rising property values. However, since the city adopted the Small Lot Act in 2005, their modern-day counterparts have emerged like weeds, with the main difference being that today’s units are for sale, not rent.
Notable Practitioners: Arthur and Alfred Heinemann; Arthur and Nina Zwebel
9. Short stories
Steeped in Hollywood fantasy and fairy tales, Storybook homes feature steep thatched roofs—some with undulating wood patterns—turrets, bathrooms, stained glass, half-timbered, and other whimsical Old World touches.
Notable Practitioners: Ben Sherwood Mayer and Harry Oliver
10. Chateauesque / French Normandy
Based on the architecture of 16th-century French castles in the Loire Valley, the Chateauesque style became chic in Los Angeles during the 1920s thanks to its fanciful allure, aristocratic associations, and last but not least, advances in veneer cladding techniques that approach the appearance of expensive masonry. Specific features include steeply sloping rooflines, turrets, crests, turrets, gables, shaped chimneys, windows, and circular or Gothic arches.
Notable Practitioners: Leland Bryant, William Douglas, Lee Percy, Park Lewis, John Delario
11. Georgian Revival
Found mostly in Bel Air, Hancock Park, Brentwood, and West Adams, Georgian Revival homes are usually two-story, rectangular in shape, pitched or gabled roofs, and a symmetrical facade. Other notable features: a main entrance with a prominent pavilion supported by columns or pilasters, double hung windows, and Palladian windows.
Notable Practitioners: Paul R. Roland Cote Gordon S. Kauffman
12. Art Deco
Art Deco her beautiful head originated in Los Angeles after the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris. Constructed of smooth-finish building materials such as stucco, concrete block, and glazed brick, Deco buildings have an elegant, linear appearance. Other distinguishing characteristics include a setback facade, reeds or grooves around doors and windows, stepped Chinese ceilings, lavish decoration using ziggurats, chevrons, and other geometric shapes, intense colors, Egyptian and Native American motifs, and other “exotic” motifs.
Notable Practitioners: Claude Bellman Leland Bryant John and Donald Parkinson
13. Simplify the conversation
A relatively short-lived style, Streamline Moderne buildings honor the spirit of progress and travel by borrowing the aerodynamic curves of the luxury trains, planes, and ocean liners of the 1930s. Steel-framed windows, louvers, curved handrails, and chrome accents are all part of the vernacular.
Notable Practitioners: William Kessling Milton Black Clarence Smell
14. Hollywood Regency
Made famous by architect John Elgin Wolf, Hollywood Regency samples 19th-century French, Greek Revival, and Modernist styles, with a healthy dose of Tinseltown glamor. Specific features include classic symmetry, skylights, oversized Pullman doors, curved staircases, elaborate moldings, oval windows, and pavilions.
Notable Practitioners: Roland Cote Paul R. John Elgin Wolf
15. Mid-Century Modern
After World War II, Los Angeles faced a housing shortage it had never seen before. In response, today’s architects, many of whom were trained at USC, developed and supported a style of the house that could be built relatively quickly using inexpensive, mass-produced materials. These homes embody postwar optimism with clean lines, post-beam construction, open plans, storied windows, and walls of glass that serve to emphasize the relationship between inside and outside and take advantage of California’s great climate.
Notable Practitioners: Buff Hensman John Lautner Rodney Walker Pierre Koenig Richard Neutra Craig Elwood Cliff May
16. Postmodernism
Ascendant in the 1980s and into the 2000s, postmodernism introduced a cheeky poke in the eye to strict minimalism, flaunting irregular, segmented shapes, bold colors, and visually appealing building materials.
Notable Practitioners: Frank Jerry Roy McMain John Portman