At the corner of Wilshire and Western, where Koreatown begins its stretch toward downtown, a blue-green tower rises in frozen zigzag lightning—twelve stories of glazed terracotta that glow turquoise at twilight and anchor a neighborhood that has reinvented itself a dozen times since 1931. This is the Wiltern Theatre and Pellissier Building, Stiles O. Clements's masterwork of zigzag moderne, a movie palace so ornate that audiences gasped before the films began. Today it survives as a concert venue, its sunburst ceiling still exploding overhead, its terracotta still catching the Los Angeles light, still the finest Art Deco theater complex in the American West.
G. Albert Lansburgh and Stiles O. Clements designed the complex for Warner Bros. in 1931—a movie palace on the ground floor, twelve stories of offices above, the whole wrapped in zigzag terracotta the color of a swimming pool. The name combined Wilshire and Western, the intersection that would become one of Los Angeles's busiest. Clements, already celebrated for the Richfield Tower downtown, drew on Egyptian, Mayan, and machine-age influences to create something entirely new: a facade of stacked zigzags and sunburst medallions, a corner tower that announced the theater from blocks away, and an interior that transported audiences to another world before a single frame of film unreeled.
The auditorium was the prize. A sunburst ceiling—2,300 individual lights radiating from a central medallion—created the effect of sitting beneath a frozen explosion. Walls featured Egyptian-influenced reliefs in gold and aquamarine. The lobby's terrazzo floors bore geometric patterns; bronze light fixtures dripped with moderne ornament; and a Kimball pipe organ rose from the orchestra pit for live accompaniment to silent films, just as the technology was becoming obsolete. Warner Bros. had invested in spectacle, and spectacle is what audiences received—whether the film was good or not.
The theater closed in 1979, victim of changing entertainment patterns and neighborhood decline. Demolition seemed inevitable until preservationists rallied, and in 1985 the complex was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. Developer Wayne Ratkovich restored the building in the late 1980s, converting the offices to a live performance venue while preserving the auditorium's original grandeur. Prince, Radiohead, the White Stripes, and Arcade Fire have all played beneath that sunburst ceiling. The terracotta was cleaned and repaired; the organ was restored; and the Wiltern returned to its original function: making audiences feel that something extraordinary was about to happen.
"The Wiltern is the most important surviving Art Deco theater in Los Angeles—a complete environment where architecture, decoration, and entertainment merged into a single experience."
— Los Angeles Conservancy
Attend a concert here if possible—the interior experience rivals any restored movie palace in America. Otherwise, walk the corner of Wilshire and Western and study the facade: the blue-green terracotta, the zigzag patterns, the sunburst medallions that echo the ceiling inside. Consider that this building was nearly lost, that the wrecking ball came within months of reducing it to rubble. Then understand what preservation means in Los Angeles: not nostalgia, but the recognition that some buildings are irreplaceable—that the sunburst ceiling and the turquoise tower belong to everyone who lives here, and everyone who visits.