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The finality of the wildfires’ destruction has taken 10 more cherished buildings — by Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, Eric Owen Moss and others.
By Sam Lubell
Reporting from Los Angeles
- Jan. 15, 2025Updated 7:05 p.m. ET
More than a week after Los Angeles’s devastating fires began, the losses to the region’s rich architectural legacy are becoming clearer. The fires have already destroyed more of the county’s built heritage than other single event, according to Adrian Scott Fine, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which recorded the loss of more than 30 significant structures on its website. That number is growing by the hour as officials, building owners and others make their way into the disaster zones to assess the damage.
The diversity of destruction reveals, in a tragic way, the stunning diversity of the region’s architecture, including Modernist, Beaux-Arts, Spanish Revival, Craftsman, Art Deco, Victorian, postmodern and contemporary buildings.
“That’s what made both the Palisades and Altadena so special,” Fine said. “They were a hodgepodge. It’s what made them so interesting and quirky, and why people loved them.”
The fires were as unpredictable as they were cruel. The celebrated architect Ray Kappe’s 539 W Rustic Road, in Rustic Canyon, was scorched but intact, while his treehouse-like Keeler house, about 10 minutes away, was obliterated. Arguably the region’s most famous modern house, Charles and Ray Eames’s home and studio — designed in 1949 for Arts & Architecture magazine’s Case Study House program — was spared. Though branches had fallen, and its expansive glass windows were covered in fire retardant, the home was largely unharmed.
“We are incredibly lucky,” said Lucia Dewey Atwood, the executive director of the Eames Foundation and a granddaughter of the Eameses.
“What’s made this month’s fires so staggering is the completeness and finality of much of its destruction,” said Ken Bernstein, manager of the city’s Office of Historic Resources. Some notable losses, like Will Rogers’s historic Ranch House, came to light last week. Here are 10 other cherished landmarks that were destroyed in the fires.
English (US)