History

Wilshire Boulevard in 1931 was still evolving from a residential boulevard into the commercial “Miracle Mile” corridor that would define mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles. The Pellissier family, who owned the corner property, commissioned Morgan, Walls & Clements — the firm also responsible for the Mayan Theater (1927) on South Hill Street — to design a building that would capitalise on that evolution. The result was the most colour-saturated office tower in the city: twelve stories clad in turquoise terracotta, rising from a theatre that Warner Bros. equipped for talking pictures.

The Warner Bros. Western Theatre presented films through the Depression and the war years, then went through several name changes and programming shifts as the Wilshire corridor aged around it. By the 1970s the theatre was closed and the building’s future was in doubt. The Los Angeles Conservancy and local preservation advocates campaigned successfully for its designation as a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1980, and in 1985 a complete restoration by architect Brenda Levin returned the building to use. The renamed Wiltern quickly established itself as a mid-sized rock and pop concert venue, and today it is one of the most sought-after bookings in Southern California for artists in the 2,000-capacity range.

Morgan, Walls & Clements’ other major Art Deco commission — the Oviatt Building (1927) on Olive Street — provides the most direct comparison: the two buildings share the firm’s precise geometric vocabulary but take it in opposite colour directions, the Oviatt in black and gold, the Wiltern in turquoise and silver.