LA's Art Deco & Beaux Art Architecture: Private Walking TourPrivate Tour

Things to know

What makes this tour special

Immerse yourself in the largely unknown architectural splendour of downtown Los Angeles, and explore some of the most incredible buildings of geometric patterns, brilliant colours, and luxurious materials that characterised Art Deco and its predecessor, Beaux Art.

On your private walking tour, you will: 

• Begin your tour at the Los Angeles City Hall, an iconic building in the city used in the films industry many times due to its eclectic style;
• Head towards the LA Courthouse, an Art Moderne architecture example;
• Admire the Bradbury Building, a recognised landmark in LA and one of the oldest surviving Beau-Arts architecture buildings downtown;
• Walk to Title Guarantee Building from 1930, a former office building now loft-style apartments which showcase the verticality of Art Deco style;
• Explore Pershing Square where your tour guide will tell you about Art Deco and Beaux Art that precedes that period and show an example of a Beaux-Arts building which is the 1925 Biltmore hotel;
• Discover the CalEdison building from 1931 on a prominent corner where you might be able to enter to see spectacular types of marble on the floor and columns;
• See Los Angeles Central Library from 1926, an example of an early Art Deco style saved from demolition in 1978 by Los Angeles Conservatory;
• Pass by PacMutual original from 1908 that resembles a Greek temple which was remodelled in the 1930s to give it an Art Deco look;
• Admire the Oviatt Building, with parts built in the Romanesque Revival style and others changed to resemble the Art Deco style after the owner visited the Paris exposition in 1925;
• See the Fox Jewelry Plaza, originally called the William Fox Building in the jewellery district of Fox Movie Theatre Company from back East.;
• See the Ninth and Broadway building from 1930, an elegant office building where you might see the lobby;
• End your tour at the spectacular Eastern Columbia Building with its iconic clock tower and the spectacular greenish terra cotta originally built as a department store, now luxury condominiums one still owned by Johnny Depp.

When one thinks about Los Angeles, images of beaches, Beverly Hills, sunshine, and the glamorous life of the rich and the famous all come to mind, but what about downtown LA? For years, downtown was rarely seen as safe, let alone as a major travel destination. But in recent years, all of that has changed, especially as businesses and developers clean up some of the city’s recognisable highrises, which were largely built in the 1920s and 1930s in spectacular art-deco fashion.

On your private tour, you will see glimmering marble columns, an art-deco library saved from demolition, Greek temples, and buildings designed to emulate the Paris exposition of 1925. You’ll wander through the jewellery district and see one of LA’s old movie theatre companies, which still evokes the feelings of ‘Old Hollywood’. Your tour will end in Santee Alley, where your guide will take you through a bit of the market before parting with you.

Your guide will be the best source of food advice for downtown, so be sure not to miss out on all the spots where you can go on a culinary adventure. 

What you'll see

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