E. Clem Wilson Building

E Clem Wilson Building
  1. About the E. Clem Wilson Building in Los Angeles
  2. Architect and team
  3. Architectural style
  4. Spaces and uses
  5. Structure and materials

The E. Clem Wilson Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Meyer & Holler, and built in 1929 in Los Angeles, CA.

E. Clem Wilson Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The E. Clem Wilson Building is also known, or has been known as, General of America Building, General Insurance Building, Mutual of Omaha Building, or Samsung Building.

Its precise street address is 5225 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

Architect and team

Meyer & Holler was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

Architectural Style

The E. Clem Wilson Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The Art Deco movement flourished during the 1920s and 1930s, with many historians marking the outbreak of World War II as its final decline. Even though a couple of decades might not seem as much, the Art Deco movement had a great impact on architecture, and it's widely represented in many American cities due to the development boom that happened during that time.

Art Deco marked the abandonment of traditional historicism and the embracement of modern living and the age of the machine. In architecture, that meant leaving behind the ornaments of Beux-Arts and Neo-Gothic buildings and instead favoring simplicity and visual impact through geometric shapes, clean lines, and symmetrical designs. Ornaments were still an important part of the design, but they became bold and lavish, and were often inspired by ancient cultures or industrial imagery, instead of nature.

The E. Clem Wilson Building was completed in 1929, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The E. Clem Wilson Building reaches an architectural height of 184ft (56m). It has a total of 13 floors.

Ever since opening its doors to the public in 1929, the E. Clem Wilson Building has mainly been used as Commercial space.

184ft (56m)

Materials & Structure

The E. Clem Wilson Building uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade is non-load bearing either, as it is common in frame structure type buildings.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a light-colored limestone cladding with multiple set-backs that create mid-high accesible terraces. The top of the building is also decorated with craved limesone, although most of that detailing is now hidden behind the now ex-Samsung billboard.