Bradbury Building

The Bradbury Building, at 304 South Broadway in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, California, is the city's oldest surviving commercial building in the central district and a standout of Gilded Age architecture. Mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury commissioned it, and construction took place between 1892 and 1893. Draftsman George Wyman received the job after Bradbury reportedly rejected the plans of the better-known architect Sumner Hunt, and Wyman later said he had been inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian novel Looking Backward, which described a glass-roofed commercial court. The exterior is a restrained Romanesque-style brick and sandstone block, but the interior is dramatic: a five-story central court lit by a skylight, with ornamental cast-iron stair railings, open-cage elevators, glazed brick, Mexican tile floors, and polished marble stairs. Natural light shifts across the wrought-iron balconies through the day. The building has served as offices for most of its life and has resisted demolition proposals since the mid-20th century. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and a National Historic Landmark in 1977, and was restored in the 1990s following damage from earthquakes. The building is closely linked to film history, appearing in Blade Runner in 1982, as well as D.O.A., Chinatown and The Artist. Because it is a working office building, the interpretive approach is minimal: visitors see the lobby and atrium on their own, and the Los Angeles Conservancy runs walking tours of Broadway that include it. There are no formal exhibits, but the architecture itself functions as the artifact. The nearby Grand Central Market and Million Dollar Theatre are on the same block, which makes the building easy to combine with a Historic Core walk. Visitors are expected to be quiet and avoid disturbing tenants. The upper floors are generally restricted to tenants, but the first-floor court and ground-level staircases offer the main views.