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Photograph © Wayne Lorentz/Artefaqs Corporation
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Built:
1964- 1966
Designed by: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Type: Skyscraper
Stories: 30
Location: 624 South Grand Avenue
City: Los Angeles
State: California
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B
uildings are like people -- the uglier they are, often the more important they are. That is the case with a building like {HumanName}. Its importance is inversely proportionate to its beauty.
Visually, {HumanName} is another generic office building: white panels cut through with rows of foreboding black windows in a massive grid. And in the margin at the top, the ultimate in self-promotion -- The name of the building in massive block letters.
Of course, like most architecture, {HumanName} is a product of its time. In the 1960's when this was built, gleaming white blocks were new and interesting. They looked futuristic, and were seen as symbols of clean progress, not white elephants.
Time marched on and the style fell out of favor. But {HumanName} managed to stage a futuristic comeback. After most of the office workers left, it became home to machines. Thousands of machines and wires and fibers and electric lines pack the building, turning it into one of the central hubs of the internet. Today, hundreds of networks, phone companies, and other high-tech firms have their electronic tentacles reaching into this building. They pay a premium price to be close to each other and to tie their networks together into a mind-bogglingly complex nest of technology.
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