Sunset Tower

skyscraper
art-deco
CA
Los Angeles

About the Sunset Tower in Los Angeles
1. Building Catalogations
Architect and team
Architectural style
Spaces and uses
Structure and materials

The Sunset Tower is an Art-deco skyscraper designed by Leland A. Bryant, and built between 1929 and 1931, for a reported $750 thousand dollars, in Los Angeles, CA.

Sunset Tower 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 building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

The St James's Club between 1988 and 1992.
The Argyle between 1992 and 2004.
The Sunset Tower Hotel from 2004 until this day.

Its precise street address is 8358 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. You can also find it on the map here.

The Sunset Tower 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 Sunset Tower was officially included in the National Register of Historic Places on May 30^th 1980.

Building's timeline

Construction begins

1929

Construction completed

1931

Added to the NRHP

1980

The St James's Club

1988

The Argyle

1992

The Sunset Tower Hotel

2004

years ago

2024

Architect and team

Leland A. Bryant was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

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 Sunset Tower a reality:

W.I. Moffett as the Main Contractor
E.M. Feming as the Main Developer

Architectural Style

The Sunset Tower 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 Sunset Tower was completed in 1931, right when the Art Deco movement was at its peak, so it kind of went with the trend at that time.

Spaces & Uses

The Sunset Tower reaches an architectural height of 289ft (88m). It has a total of 15 floors.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1931, the Sunset Tower was primarily used as Residential space. That however, is no longer the case, and today it mainly provides Hotel space.

About the Hotel

The hotel is a 5 stars category hotel. The name of the hotel is Sunset Tower Hotel. You can learn more about the hotel by visiting their website here.

Materials & Structure

The Sunset Tower uses a frame structure made of steel columns and reinforced 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.

Sources

npgallery.nps.gov