The cultural history of Los Angeles, at least in terms of music and drama, dates back to the frontier days when the Merced Theatre was constructed on Main Street in 1870.
The ground level was planned as a retail store, the second floor housed a 400-seat Theatre, and the third floor was an apartment. After its first years of glory, it subsisted on minstrel shows and melodrama, including such s
tands as Uncle Tom's Cabin, East Lynne, and Ten Nights in a Bar Room. In 1876 it was leased by J.H. Wood
and became Wood's Opera House. Opera House, howe
ver, was more of a name than a description of the entertainment, which ranged from boxing matches to broad farces. Wood wen
t bankrupt in 1878. For a time, the Theatre served as armory, but in 1883 it reopened as the Club Theatre, another variety house.
Merced Theater
Upstanding Angelenos looked on the Theatre as scandalous, giving rise to the construct
ion of several legitimate Theatres. First
of the new Theatres was Child's Opera House, almost immediately renamed the Grand Opera House, which was built in 1884 by O.W. Childs on Main Street just south of First. At that time it was the secon
d largest Theatre on the Pacific Coast, seating 1,200. A second Theatre opened four years later, the Los Angeles, built by Mrs. Juana Neal, on Sp
ring Street between Second and Third. It vied with the Grand Opera House in the presentation of opera, musicals, and drama "direct from New York City." In 1893, a third rival appeared when Dr. David Burbank opened the Burbank Theatre opposite his home on the 500 block of south Main Street.
The relative opulence of these Theatres, however, did not meet the city's need for a really large auditorium. Showman George "Roundhouse" Lehman planned on constructing a large Theatre center on the land he purchased at the northeast corner of Fifth and Olive Streets. Before he could realize his dream, Lehman went broke and the property was sold to City Attorney (and soon to be Mayor) Henry Hazard.
Hazard also saw the need for a cultural center. In 1886, he began construction on the wood-framed
building that ended up looking more like a barn than a civic auditorium. The 4,00
The relative opulence of these Theatres, however, did not meet the city's need for a really large auditorium. Showman George "Roundhouse" Lehman planned on constructing a large Theatre center on the land he purchased at the northeast corner of Fifth and Olive Streets. Before he could realize his dream, Lehman went broke and the property was sold to City Attorney (and soon to be Mayor) Henry Hazard.
Hazard also saw the need for a cultural center. In 1886, he began construction on the wood-framed
building that ended up looking more like a barn than a civic auditorium. The 4,000 seat auditorium building, which also included a restaurant and art salon, had a 50 foo
t ceiling and square cupola-topped towers flanking the main entrance. In April of 1887, Hazard's Pavilion opened
modestly with a c
ivic flower festival, but a month later it presented the National Opera Company with 300 singers, ballet dancers, and musicians.
Hazard's Pavilion
Opera came of age in Los Angeles in 1900 when Theatre impresario L.E. Behymer staged the American premiere of Puccini's La Boheme at Hazard's. By then, Los Angeles was a bustling town of 102,179 people. The following
The Los Angeles Philharmonic owes its birth to William Andrews Clark Jr., a multi-millionaire and amateur musician. When Clark announced that he was going to endow an orchestra 
From the start serious music in Los Angeles had a populist bent which it never lost. The day after the Philharmonic made its d
Photo Courtesy of Scarboropolis
Stevenson and Clark purchased forty-five acres in a small box canyon in the Cahuenga Pass with the idea of developing another outdoor Theatre dedicated to the presentation of religious plays.
The Greek Theatre opened on September 25, 1930 under the direction of L.E. Behymer and Paul Eisler of the Metropolitan Opera. Unfortunately, the Theatre sat virtually vacant for several years. Following in his father's footsteps, Van Griffith encountered a power struggle with the Park Commission. Griffith wanted to hire a manager to operate the Theatre on the City's behalf, while the Park Commission wanted more direct control. Consequently, the Theatre's 1931 opera season lasted one night. The opera season lasted only five nights the following year. During the late 1930s, the Theatre was used extensively by two federally-subsidized cultural programs. The Federal Theatre Project occupied the Theatre during the summer of 1936, and the Federal Music Project resided there from 1938 until 1940.
Many Angelenos didn't even know of the Theatre's existence until after World War II. Between 1947 and 1950, Gene Mann leased the facility and presented musical comedies and light opera. With the Theatre finally operating successfully, the City invested $163,000 in improvements. Attendance declined dramatically in 1951, however, and Mann lost his lease. James Doolittle took over the management of the Theatre and attributed the poor turn-out to television. Doolittle changed the programming to heavier fare such as classical ballet and opera. By the late 1950s, however, Doolittle changed his strategy again, and began to book popular movie and recording stars such as Maurice Chevalier and Judy Garland. Since that time the Greek has been leased to a private operating company and has continued to emphasize popular recording acts.
The Los Angeles Civic Light Opera was formed in 1938 and became the second major tenant of the Philharmonic Auditorium. They were the first company to offer Los Angeles audiences entire Broadway shows such as Cabin in the Sky, which included the original cast and costumes. By 1949, the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera started producing first-class duplicate productions of current long-run shows so Los Angeles audiences didn't have to wait until they closed on Broadway, such as Kiss Me, Kate, South Pacific, and Guys and Dolls. Eventually, the group hosted a series of world premiere shows such as Song of Norway, which became a hit on Broadway.
In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the Los Angeles region experienced a period of phenomenal growth and development unparalleled in any other part of the United States. This trend began during the war years as thousands streamed into the Los Angeles area to take jobs in the defense industry, and continued in the post-war years as southern California emerged as a center of the fledgling aerospace, electronics, and scientific industries, and also saw dramatic growth in the local entertainment industry. The population of Los Angeles County expanded by forty-nine percent between 1940 and 1950, adding some 950,000 people, and by an additional forty-five percent between 1950 and 1960. Los Angeles had vaulted into the position of third largest city in the country by 1950.
By the mid-1930s, the Temple Baptist Church owned controlling interest in the Auditorium Company. By January 1, 1947, the church had acquired all of the stock and announced their intention to restrict the use of the auditorium to church affairs. As the church was asserting control over the auditorium, the County of Los Angeles was sponsoring a bond initiative to build a War Memorial Opera House with 1952 as their completion date. When the bond failed to secure enough votes, the church extended the leases of the Philharmonic and Civic Light Opera on a year-to-year basis in hopes that the music lovers of Los Angeles would build a music center.
The endeavor to create a new facility for music in Los Angeles dates to the late 1930s when plans were devised for a complex that would include a music auditorium and a trade and exhibition hall. Proponents believed that the best approach to the successful realization of a new music center was to convince the culturally-minded and the business-minded to join forces. Seven firms had each pledged $50,000 toward the exhibition hall-music center when World War II intervened. Community efforts to build a civic auditorium and opera house were revived in 1945 with the formation of the Greater Los Angeles Plans, Inc. The following year the group acquired two pieces of property for the proposed buildings; one was a twenty-six-acre parcel between Third, Fifth, Figueroa, and Fremont Streets, and the other was a block on Sixth Street opposite Lafayette Park. When the bond issue for the two projects was rejected by voters, the Lafayette Park property was sold and attention was focused on the downtown site.
In 1951, the proposal for what had been formalized as a civic auditorium and convention center complex made the first of three appearances on the ballot. The measure failed to attract the two-thirds of the vote necessary for approval. The proposal was presented to voters again in 1953 and again was defeated, although by a narrower margin. In a final attempt to win voter approval, plans were placed on the ballot once more in 1954. By now the estimated cost of the mixed-use facility had risen to $37 million. Even so, the measure lost by less than one percent of the votes cast. One thing made evident by the defeat was that a publicly-financed combined music center/trade center plan would not be workable.
In March of 1955, Mrs. Dorothy Chandler, fresh from her battle to save the Hollywood Bowl, with other leaders of the Southern California Symphony Association, independently staged the El Dorado Party, a lavish fundraiser at the Ambassador Hotel. The event brought in an amazing $400,000 toward a permanent home for the Philharmonic, and this group went on to spearhead private efforts to develop a music center.
Later that year, a framework for civic development was passed by the State Legislature that authorized the County to lease any convention hall or auditorium it might build to a non-profit corporation. A county-wide Citizen's Advisory Committee was then formed with the task of finding a site and financing the complex. Chosen by the County Board of Supervisors to chair the committee was Dorothy Chandler. The thirty-six member group of civic, business, and entertainment leaders included such notables as Charles S. Jones, David Hearst, Donald Douglas, Cecil B. De Mille, and Harry Warner. The consulting firm of Arthur D. Little, Inc. was hired by the County to prepare a feasibility study. Their 1956 report recommended a $50 million combined civic auditorium and Music Center Campus on a site bounded by Olympic Boulevard, Eighth, Hill, and Flower Streets. The report was enthusiastically approved, and Chandler's committee was reorganized and expanded as the Civic Auditorium and Music Center Association of Los Angeles County (CAMCA), a nonprofit corporation that would finance the project and oversee construction. The timing of the project coincided, however, with a major economic downturn. As the architectural and financial plans evolved, the County Supervisors became concerned about increasing costs and the project was placed on hold.
Chandler became president of the Southern California Symphony Association in 1958, and under her leadership the private music center building campaign resumed. "In January, 1959, as president of the Symphony, I remember saying to my board that just one thing was my goal -- to build a permanent home for the orchestra. We still had $400,000, plus interest from the El Dorado party in 1955," Chandler recalled (Davenport p. 42). Over the course of the following year, Chandler's group managed to secure a series of major contributions, including $100,000 from Myford Irvine of the Irvine Company, and another $100,000 from the Michael J. Connell Foundation.
In March, 1959, Chandler appeared before the County Supervisors with an unprecedented offer of $4 million in privately subscribed funds toward construction of a music center. She asked that in return, a parcel be set aside for the facility at the western end of the Civic Center, and that the County appoint and pay for an architect to prepare the plans. The proposal was unanimously approved and the Music Center Building Fund Committee was established, with Chandler as Chairman. A site at the northwest corner of Hope and First Streets was identified by the County Chief Administrative Officer for the building. Chandler vigorously lobbied City and County officials to negotiate a land transfer that would give Music Center a more prominent position at the summit of Bunker Hill, a site formerly set aside for the Department of Water and Power (DWP) Building. The proposed DWP building would be relocated to the adjacent block, thereby anchoring the west end of the Civic Center axis. The land swap was negotiated to support construction of a single large performance hall and approved in December, 1959.
Through her work on the University of California Board of Regents' Grounds and Building Committee, Chandler had come to know UCLA campus master planner Welton Becket and was an admirer of his firm's work. Becket had also worked closely with Chandler during efforts to rejuvenate the Hollywood Bowl, where his firm designed numerous improvements during the early to mid-1950s. On behalf of her committee, Chandler asked Becket to prepare preliminary plans for the project. The completed schematic design was presented to the Building Fund Committee and met with its enthusiastic support. The Music Center as originally conceived was next presented to the County Board of Supervisors in July, 1960, and ultimately approved.
Plans for the complex initially consisted of a single large concert hall located between Grand Avenue and Hope Street on First Street. The scheme included a formal plaza with a large central pool adjoining the hall on the north side. The plaza would rest atop a subterranean parking garage and create a formal western terminus for the Civic Center Mall. The northern portion of the parcel was left open and undeveloped, with an eye to future expansion.
Dorothy Chandler stated that she realized while visiting London and attending Theatres there in late 1960 that one building would not be enough. "We needed two others to give the Center more flexibility and more sources of revenue. We needed a Theatre and a smaller auditorium or forum" (Davenport p. 42). A Becket company rendering published in the Los Angeles Times early in 1961 indicates that a two-building scheme was briefly considered, but this plan quickly gave way to Dorothy Chandler's three-building concept. Subsequent to securing the property, the project proponents negotiated the ability to incorporate two additional venues.
Designs developed by Welton Becket and Associates kept the primary hall, the "Memorial Pavilion," at the south end of the site, and two structures, a circular "Forum" for experimental Theatre and small scale musical performance, and a larger square "Center" Theatre for legitimate drama and light opera, were placed on the north half of the site surrounded by a monumental colonnade. The buildings were organized around a central plaza and rested atop an elevated podium above a subterranean parking structure. Plans for the expanded facility were presented to the County Finance Committee and approved in March of 1961, and the Building Fund Committee was obliged to raise an additional $5 million. The Board of Supervisors called for bids the following November 28.
By the end of 1961, all existing buildings on the site had been removed and contractor Peter Kiewit Sons Company began work on March 12, 1962. Construction of the first phase of the Music Center, including the Memorial Pavilion, Plaza, and parking, was completed and the facility dedicated with a gala opening on December 6, 1964, followed by a week-long concert series. The additional venues, renamed the "Mark Taper Forum" and "Ahmanson Theatre," were dedicated on April 9 and 12, 1967, respectively. The ultimate cost of the project was $33.5 million, almost $19 million of which was raised through private contributions.
When the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened its doors on December 6, 1964, the twenty-eight year old Zubin Mehta led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program that included violinist Jascha Heifetz and performances of Strauss' Fan Fare and Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major. The Mark Taper Forum, "scandalizing the power structure of Los Angeles," according to its artistic director Gordon Davidson, with its provocative opening production of John Whiting's The Devils (Rico p. 63). The Ahmanson Theatre opened with a performance of the Man of La Mancha by the Civic Light Opera. The first dramatic season at the Ahmanson featured Ingrid Bergman in O'Neill's More Stately Mansions, signaling its intent to marry big-name playwrights with big-name stars. Over the last thirty-eight years the Music Center has seen the American debuts of Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen, the world premieres of The Shadow Box, Zoot Suit, Children of a Lesser God, and Angels in America at the Taper, and performances by Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Katharine Hepburn, and Maggie Smith at the Ahmanson. The Philharmonic and L.A. Master Chorale joined forces to provide the accompaniment to Eisenstein's restored silent film classic Alexander Nevsky. While the Civic Light Opera's last season at the Music Center was in 1987, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera was formed in 1986. Its productions have included Wagner's Tristan and Isolde directed by Jonathan Miller and designed by David Hockney.
The above piece, "Cultural History of Los Angeles" is an excerpt from Historic American Building Survey prepared by Teresa Grimes.
Opera came of age in Los Angeles in 1900 when Theatre impresario L.E. Behymer staged the American premiere of Puccini's La Boheme at Hazard's. By then, Los Angeles was a bustling town of 102,179 people. The following
year Behymer presented Emma Calve and Enrico Caruso in Carmen. Thus the cultural center of Los Angeles was established at the corner of Fifth and Olive Streets, across from Pershing Square. Culture in turn of the century Los Angeles, however, also included everything from opera to sports to politics and religion.
On Sunday
On Sunday
s, the building was leased to the newly-formed Temple Baptist Church. Under the leadership of Dr. Robert Burdette, the congregation grew rapidly. In 1905, the church bought the property for $170,
000. A campaign was launched to tear down the old wood building and replace it with a more substantial one. The cost of the proje
ct was imposing on the church, and the city now needed a new auditorium. Thus the idea was conceived to combine the two purposes into one building. Downtown businessmen responded. The Auditorium Company was formed as a private entity with the church as a large, but not controlling stockholder. Funding was completed with a long-term bond issue, finally retired in the early 1930s.
The new auditorium was designed by architect Charles F. Whittlesley, who had worked
The new auditorium was designed by architect Charles F. Whittlesley, who had worked
in Chicago with Louis Sullivan. When the building was completed in 1906, it was only the third reinforced concrete structure in Los Angeles, and now the largest one in California. The building, immodestly called the Theatre B
eautiful, included a nine-story office building fronting on Fifth Street, and a 2,400 seat auditorium facing Olive Street. Given Whittlesley's background, it was no surprise that the building resembled Sullivan's Chicago Opera House. Dr. Burdette dedicated the auditorium as a church on Sunday, November 11, 1906. From the beginning the congregation protested the use of the building, which they considered sacred, for secular purposes.
The auditorium was renamed Clune Auditorium in 1915, when Billy Clune, a pioneer film exhibitor, leased it as a motion picture hous
e. Clune's hosted the world premiere of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, which played for two years with a twenty-piece orchestra. Live song and dance prologues were presented on stage, and one of these featured a young man who later changed his name to Rudolph Valentino. Behymer continued to book the house under Clune's management and for one week in 1915 permitted Behymer to book the hou
se for the only visit to Los Angeles of Nijinsky and his company of dancers from Diaghilev's Ballet Russe. When the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra moved into the auditorium in 1920, the building adopted a new name - Philharmonic Auditorium.
In the late 1880s amateur orchestras had been formed under the sponsorship of the YMCA and the First Congregational Church. A music society called the Philharmonics formed under the stewardship of Major General John Charles Fremont. A Women's Symphony Orchestra was organized in 1893 and began to offer public programs. A local musician, A.J. Stamm, assembled a small private orchestra in the mid-1890s and began a series of concerts that emphasized the light
classics and occasionally more ambitious music. In 1898, Stamm's former concertmaster, Harley Hamilton, established the L
os Angeles Symphony. Only New York, St. Louis, Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati preceded Los Angeles in the establishment of such an orchestra. The symphony performed at Trinity Auditorium on South Hope Street. With the success o
f the Theatre Beautiful, the congregation of the Trinity Methodist Church chose to build a similar structure. Completed in 1913, Trinity Auditorium included church offices, a residential hotel, and the 1,500 seat concert hall. In addition to the Los Angeles Symphony orchestra, Trinity Auditorium played host to the Women's Symphony Orchestra. Both companies were managed by Behymer.
in 1919, Adolph Tandler, director of the Los Angeles Symphony, offered to merge his organization with the new Philha
rmonic, but Clark preferred to proceed with an entirely new structure. When the Los Angeles Symphony folded the next year, the Philharmonic acquired some of its best musicians, along with the services of Behymer. The ninety-four musicians of the new company met for their first rehearsal Monday morning, October 13, 1919 under the directio
n of Walter Henry Rothwell. Clark had brought Rothwell from the St. Paul Symphony Orchestra. Eleven days later, Rothwell conducted the orchestra's premiere performance before a capacity audience at Trinity Auditorium. Clark Jr.
Clark continued to be the sole patron of the Philharmonic until his death in 1934.
From the start serious music in Los Angeles had a populist bent which it never lost. The day after the Philharmonic made its d
ebut at Trinity Auditorium, Clark and Behymer offered a Sunday afternoon concert of even more accessible music at ticket prices beginning at twenty-five cents. For Easter 1920, at the request of the Hollywood Bowl Association, Clark underwrote a performance of the Philharmonic at a sunrise service held on Olive Hill in Barnsdall Park. Thus began a relationship that continues to this day.
In May of 1916, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was staged in Beachwood Canyon in the Hollywood Hills to commemorate the tercent
In May of 1916, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was staged in Beachwood Canyon in the Hollywood Hills to commemorate the tercent
enary of the Bard's death. A cast of three thousand, including the stude
nt bodies of Hollywood and Fairfax High Schools played before a crowd estimated at forty thousand. Two years later the Theosophical Society successfully performed Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia pageant in a similar setting. The success of these performances stimulated interest in building a permanent outdoor Theatre. The Theatre Arts Alliance was formed, and bought fifty-nine acres of the present site of the Hollywood Bowl. Christine Wetherill Stevenson, one of the organizers of the Light of Asia, was elected president. The Theatre Arts Alliance quickly fell apart on the issue of how exactly to employ the property. Stevenson's camp wanted an emphasis on religious p
ageants, while the opposing camp favored broader cultural programs.
The group resolved to reorganize as the Community Park and Art Association and reimburse Stevenson, and another major donor Mr
The group resolved to reorganize as the Community Park and Art Association and reimburse Stevenson, and another major donor Mr
s. Chauncey Clark. Mrs. Artie Mason Carter took over leadership of the new organization. She convinced William Andrews Clark to sponsor a series of summertime concerts at the Bowl. The site was still more or less a park until the early 1920s. Under Carter's leadership, enough money was raised to prepare the amphiTheatre with staging, lighting, and benches. In 1924 the Hollywood Bowl Association replaced the earlier organization, and the facility was turned over to the County of Los Angeles.
Photo Courtesy of ScarboropolisThe existing shell was designed in 1931 by Allied Architects, but has been remodeled. The Bowl continues to operate as a public facility and is the summer residence of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Stevenson and Clark purchased forty-five acres in a small box canyon in the Cahuenga Pass with the idea of developing another outdoor Theatre dedicated to the presentation of religious plays.
Eventually it was decided that a play would be developed about the life of Christ. The ori
ginal stage was built by volunteers in1920 who carried rocks down from the hills. The Pilgrimage Play was presented in the Theatre until a lawsuit forced its closure in 1964. The original wood stage was destroyed by fire in 1929. The existing facility was constructed of poured concrete in 1931 by the Works Progress Administration, and was designed to resemble the gates of ancient Jerusalem. In 1943 the facility was turned over to the County of Los Angeles and is now operated by the County Arts Commission as the John Anson Ford Theatre.
The Greek Theatre opened on September 25, 1930 under the direction of L.E. Behymer and Paul Eisler of the Metropolitan Opera. Unfortunately, the Theatre sat virtually vacant for several years. Following in his father's footsteps, Van Griffith encountered a power struggle with the Park Commission. Griffith wanted to hire a manager to operate the Theatre on the City's behalf, while the Park Commission wanted more direct control. Consequently, the Theatre's 1931 opera season lasted one night. The opera season lasted only five nights the following year. During the late 1930s, the Theatre was used extensively by two federally-subsidized cultural programs. The Federal Theatre Project occupied the Theatre during the summer of 1936, and the Federal Music Project resided there from 1938 until 1940.
Many Angelenos didn't even know of the Theatre's existence until after World War II. Between 1947 and 1950, Gene Mann leased the facility and presented musical comedies and light opera. With the Theatre finally operating successfully, the City invested $163,000 in improvements. Attendance declined dramatically in 1951, however, and Mann lost his lease. James Doolittle took over the management of the Theatre and attributed the poor turn-out to television. Doolittle changed the programming to heavier fare such as classical ballet and opera. By the late 1950s, however, Doolittle changed his strategy again, and began to book popular movie and recording stars such as Maurice Chevalier and Judy Garland. Since that time the Greek has been leased to a private operating company and has continued to emphasize popular recording acts.
The Los Angeles Civic Light Opera was formed in 1938 and became the second major tenant of the Philharmonic Auditorium. They were the first company to offer Los Angeles audiences entire Broadway shows such as Cabin in the Sky, which included the original cast and costumes. By 1949, the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera started producing first-class duplicate productions of current long-run shows so Los Angeles audiences didn't have to wait until they closed on Broadway, such as Kiss Me, Kate, South Pacific, and Guys and Dolls. Eventually, the group hosted a series of world premiere shows such as Song of Norway, which became a hit on Broadway.
In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the Los Angeles region experienced a period of phenomenal growth and development unparalleled in any other part of the United States. This trend began during the war years as thousands streamed into the Los Angeles area to take jobs in the defense industry, and continued in the post-war years as southern California emerged as a center of the fledgling aerospace, electronics, and scientific industries, and also saw dramatic growth in the local entertainment industry. The population of Los Angeles County expanded by forty-nine percent between 1940 and 1950, adding some 950,000 people, and by an additional forty-five percent between 1950 and 1960. Los Angeles had vaulted into the position of third largest city in the country by 1950.
By the mid-1930s, the Temple Baptist Church owned controlling interest in the Auditorium Company. By January 1, 1947, the church had acquired all of the stock and announced their intention to restrict the use of the auditorium to church affairs. As the church was asserting control over the auditorium, the County of Los Angeles was sponsoring a bond initiative to build a War Memorial Opera House with 1952 as their completion date. When the bond failed to secure enough votes, the church extended the leases of the Philharmonic and Civic Light Opera on a year-to-year basis in hopes that the music lovers of Los Angeles would build a music center.
The endeavor to create a new facility for music in Los Angeles dates to the late 1930s when plans were devised for a complex that would include a music auditorium and a trade and exhibition hall. Proponents believed that the best approach to the successful realization of a new music center was to convince the culturally-minded and the business-minded to join forces. Seven firms had each pledged $50,000 toward the exhibition hall-music center when World War II intervened. Community efforts to build a civic auditorium and opera house were revived in 1945 with the formation of the Greater Los Angeles Plans, Inc. The following year the group acquired two pieces of property for the proposed buildings; one was a twenty-six-acre parcel between Third, Fifth, Figueroa, and Fremont Streets, and the other was a block on Sixth Street opposite Lafayette Park. When the bond issue for the two projects was rejected by voters, the Lafayette Park property was sold and attention was focused on the downtown site.
In 1951, the proposal for what had been formalized as a civic auditorium and convention center complex made the first of three appearances on the ballot. The measure failed to attract the two-thirds of the vote necessary for approval. The proposal was presented to voters again in 1953 and again was defeated, although by a narrower margin. In a final attempt to win voter approval, plans were placed on the ballot once more in 1954. By now the estimated cost of the mixed-use facility had risen to $37 million. Even so, the measure lost by less than one percent of the votes cast. One thing made evident by the defeat was that a publicly-financed combined music center/trade center plan would not be workable.
In March of 1955, Mrs. Dorothy Chandler, fresh from her battle to save the Hollywood Bowl, with other leaders of the Southern California Symphony Association, independently staged the El Dorado Party, a lavish fundraiser at the Ambassador Hotel. The event brought in an amazing $400,000 toward a permanent home for the Philharmonic, and this group went on to spearhead private efforts to develop a music center.
Later that year, a framework for civic development was passed by the State Legislature that authorized the County to lease any convention hall or auditorium it might build to a non-profit corporation. A county-wide Citizen's Advisory Committee was then formed with the task of finding a site and financing the complex. Chosen by the County Board of Supervisors to chair the committee was Dorothy Chandler. The thirty-six member group of civic, business, and entertainment leaders included such notables as Charles S. Jones, David Hearst, Donald Douglas, Cecil B. De Mille, and Harry Warner. The consulting firm of Arthur D. Little, Inc. was hired by the County to prepare a feasibility study. Their 1956 report recommended a $50 million combined civic auditorium and Music Center Campus on a site bounded by Olympic Boulevard, Eighth, Hill, and Flower Streets. The report was enthusiastically approved, and Chandler's committee was reorganized and expanded as the Civic Auditorium and Music Center Association of Los Angeles County (CAMCA), a nonprofit corporation that would finance the project and oversee construction. The timing of the project coincided, however, with a major economic downturn. As the architectural and financial plans evolved, the County Supervisors became concerned about increasing costs and the project was placed on hold.
Chandler became president of the Southern California Symphony Association in 1958, and under her leadership the private music center building campaign resumed. "In January, 1959, as president of the Symphony, I remember saying to my board that just one thing was my goal -- to build a permanent home for the orchestra. We still had $400,000, plus interest from the El Dorado party in 1955," Chandler recalled (Davenport p. 42). Over the course of the following year, Chandler's group managed to secure a series of major contributions, including $100,000 from Myford Irvine of the Irvine Company, and another $100,000 from the Michael J. Connell Foundation.
In March, 1959, Chandler appeared before the County Supervisors with an unprecedented offer of $4 million in privately subscribed funds toward construction of a music center. She asked that in return, a parcel be set aside for the facility at the western end of the Civic Center, and that the County appoint and pay for an architect to prepare the plans. The proposal was unanimously approved and the Music Center Building Fund Committee was established, with Chandler as Chairman. A site at the northwest corner of Hope and First Streets was identified by the County Chief Administrative Officer for the building. Chandler vigorously lobbied City and County officials to negotiate a land transfer that would give Music Center a more prominent position at the summit of Bunker Hill, a site formerly set aside for the Department of Water and Power (DWP) Building. The proposed DWP building would be relocated to the adjacent block, thereby anchoring the west end of the Civic Center axis. The land swap was negotiated to support construction of a single large performance hall and approved in December, 1959.
Through her work on the University of California Board of Regents' Grounds and Building Committee, Chandler had come to know UCLA campus master planner Welton Becket and was an admirer of his firm's work. Becket had also worked closely with Chandler during efforts to rejuvenate the Hollywood Bowl, where his firm designed numerous improvements during the early to mid-1950s. On behalf of her committee, Chandler asked Becket to prepare preliminary plans for the project. The completed schematic design was presented to the Building Fund Committee and met with its enthusiastic support. The Music Center as originally conceived was next presented to the County Board of Supervisors in July, 1960, and ultimately approved.
Plans for the complex initially consisted of a single large concert hall located between Grand Avenue and Hope Street on First Street. The scheme included a formal plaza with a large central pool adjoining the hall on the north side. The plaza would rest atop a subterranean parking garage and create a formal western terminus for the Civic Center Mall. The northern portion of the parcel was left open and undeveloped, with an eye to future expansion.
Dorothy Chandler stated that she realized while visiting London and attending Theatres there in late 1960 that one building would not be enough. "We needed two others to give the Center more flexibility and more sources of revenue. We needed a Theatre and a smaller auditorium or forum" (Davenport p. 42). A Becket company rendering published in the Los Angeles Times early in 1961 indicates that a two-building scheme was briefly considered, but this plan quickly gave way to Dorothy Chandler's three-building concept. Subsequent to securing the property, the project proponents negotiated the ability to incorporate two additional venues.
Designs developed by Welton Becket and Associates kept the primary hall, the "Memorial Pavilion," at the south end of the site, and two structures, a circular "Forum" for experimental Theatre and small scale musical performance, and a larger square "Center" Theatre for legitimate drama and light opera, were placed on the north half of the site surrounded by a monumental colonnade. The buildings were organized around a central plaza and rested atop an elevated podium above a subterranean parking structure. Plans for the expanded facility were presented to the County Finance Committee and approved in March of 1961, and the Building Fund Committee was obliged to raise an additional $5 million. The Board of Supervisors called for bids the following November 28.
By the end of 1961, all existing buildings on the site had been removed and contractor Peter Kiewit Sons Company began work on March 12, 1962. Construction of the first phase of the Music Center, including the Memorial Pavilion, Plaza, and parking, was completed and the facility dedicated with a gala opening on December 6, 1964, followed by a week-long concert series. The additional venues, renamed the "Mark Taper Forum" and "Ahmanson Theatre," were dedicated on April 9 and 12, 1967, respectively. The ultimate cost of the project was $33.5 million, almost $19 million of which was raised through private contributions.
When the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened its doors on December 6, 1964, the twenty-eight year old Zubin Mehta led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program that included violinist Jascha Heifetz and performances of Strauss' Fan Fare and Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major. The Mark Taper Forum, "scandalizing the power structure of Los Angeles," according to its artistic director Gordon Davidson, with its provocative opening production of John Whiting's The Devils (Rico p. 63). The Ahmanson Theatre opened with a performance of the Man of La Mancha by the Civic Light Opera. The first dramatic season at the Ahmanson featured Ingrid Bergman in O'Neill's More Stately Mansions, signaling its intent to marry big-name playwrights with big-name stars. Over the last thirty-eight years the Music Center has seen the American debuts of Simon Rattle and Esa-Pekka Salonen, the world premieres of The Shadow Box, Zoot Suit, Children of a Lesser God, and Angels in America at the Taper, and performances by Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Katharine Hepburn, and Maggie Smith at the Ahmanson. The Philharmonic and L.A. Master Chorale joined forces to provide the accompaniment to Eisenstein's restored silent film classic Alexander Nevsky. While the Civic Light Opera's last season at the Music Center was in 1987, the Los Angeles Music Center Opera was formed in 1986. Its productions have included Wagner's Tristan and Isolde directed by Jonathan Miller and designed by David Hockney.
The above piece, "Cultural History of Los Angeles" is an excerpt from Historic American Building Survey prepared by Teresa Grimes.
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