James Oviatt Building

The James Oviatt Building is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Walker & Eisen, and built between 1927 and 1928 in Los Angeles, CA.

James Oviatt Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as The Oviatt Building.

Its precise street address is 617 S. Olive Street, Los Angeles, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

The James Oviatt Building is a structure of significant importance both for the city of Los Angeles and the United States as a nation. The building embodies the distinctive characteristic features of the time in which it was built and the Art Deco style. Because of that, the James Oviatt Building was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places on August 11^th 1983.

The building has been restored 3 times over the years to ensure its conservation and adaptation to the pass of time. The main restoration works happened in 1970, 1981 and 1990.

Walker & Eisen was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about Feil & Paradise.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the James Oviatt Building a reality:

• James Zera Oviatt as the Main Developer
• Rene Lalique as the collaborating Artist

The James Oviatt Building can be categorized as an Art-deco building.

The James Oviatt Building was completed in 1928, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

The James Oviatt 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 cream-colored terracotta cladding, interrupted by a metal marquee that crowns each of the second-floor windows. The ground floors are cladded in black marble, and atop the building, a two-story tower houses the first neon clock with three faces of the city.

Other materials found at the James Oviatt Building include, glass, more than 30 tons of stained glass designed by the artist René Lalique were used for the lamps, panels, windows, showcases and the expansive interior illuminated ceiling, and alpaca, this new metal for the time, also known as German silver, was used for the mailbox and all elevator doors.