Bradbury Building and surrounding area, Downtown Los Angeles

Bradbury Building and surrounding area, Downtown Los Angeles, a set on Flickr.

From Wikipedia:

The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark in Los Angeles, California. The building was built in 1893 and is located at 304 South Broadway (at 3rd Street) in downtown.

Architecture

The building itself features an Italian Renaissance Revival -style exterior facade of brown brick, sandstone and panels of terra cotta details, in the "commercial Romanesque Revival" that was the current idiom in East Coast American cities. But the magnificence of the building is the interior: reached through the entrance, with its low ceiling and minimal light, it opens into a bright naturally lit great center court.

Robert Forster, star of the TV series Banyon that used the building for his office, described it as "one of the great interiors of L.A. Outside it doesn't look like much, but when you walk inside, suddenly you're back a hundred and twenty years."[5]

The five-story central court features glazed brick, ornamental cast iron, tiling, rich marble, and polished wood, capped by a skylight that allows the court to be flooded with natural rather than artificial light, creating ever-changing shadows and accents during the day.

The elevators, which go up to the fifth floor, are cage elevators that are surrounded by wrought-iron grillwork rather than masonry.

The entire main building features geometric patterned staircases at all ends. Ornately designed wrought-iron railings are used abundantly throughout the building to create the illusion of hanging vegetation.

The wrought-iron was created in France and displayed at the Chicago World's Fair before being installed in the building. Freestanding mail-chutes also feature ironwork.

The walls are made of pale glazed brick. The marble used in the staircase was imported from Belgium, and the floors are Mexican tiles.