L.A. Conservancy to Block Demolition of Century Plaza Hotel

Linda Dishman: Demolishing the 1966 Century Plaza Hotel is a bad idea on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin. In addition to erasing an important part of our history and dumping a very large, perfectly functional building into a landfill, it would squander a unique opportunity for Los Angeles to create a model of urban planning perfectly suited to our region and our time.

The owners of the Century Plaza, Next Century Associates, plan to replace the hotel with mixed-use development including two 49-story, 570-foot towers and a two-acre public plaza. According to their proposal, the complex would include residential, office, and hotel space; retail and restaurants; and 26,250 square feet of meeting and event space. That would leave the Westside with a quarter of the meeting and event space now offered by the Century Plaza Hotel (more than 100,000 square feet, including a 2,000-person ballroom that was the largest on the West Coast when built).

Next Century cites as its inspiration the Greening of Century City Pedestrian Connectivity Plan. Completed in 2007 by Rios Clementi Hale Studios, the greening plan seeks to update Century City "from a quintessential mid-20th century commercial district, into a refreshed, sustainable, walkable community for the 21st century."

Essentially, the plan focuses on improving Century City's streetscapes, wayfinding, programming, and public transit connections. It includes recommendations for strengthening pedestrian connections to the existing Century Plaza Hotel and redefining its orientation to the street.

Next Century also touts its proposed plan as environmentally friendly. I can't understand what is environmentally friendly about trashing an 800,000 square-foot building that received a $36 million face-lift just over a year ago.

A bold move in urban planning

Completed in 1966, the Century Plaza Hotel was built as the centerpiece of Century City, a "city within a city" conceived 50 years ago in a progressive approach to urban planning. Century City rose on the former backlot of 20th Century-Fox Studios-at 180 acres, an enormous clean slate for realizing bold new planning principles. In the rapidly expanding metropolis of Los Angeles, by then fully entrenched in the culture of the automobile, these principles included separating cars from pedestrians.

Whether you like or dislike Century City, there's no doubt that it plays a key role in the city's history of urban planning. Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne called Century City, "among the purest representations of 1960s Los Angeles planning and architectural philosophy we have left." As part of the parcel's original development, the Century Plaza Hotel, "has a connection to place, context and planning history rare among buildings of its relatively young age," ("Century Plaza as L.A. Statement," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2009).

"The Century Plaza Hotel exemplifies central themes of architecture and urban planning as uniquely articulated in the 1960s throughout the United States," adds architect, architecture critic, and author Alan Hess. "Its size and breadth show the era's boldness and confidence. Its newness shows the era's innovative and progressive character. It illustrates the decentralized urban form achieved in the suburban metropolis by the 1960s."

The focus of much urban planning has since shifted to making cities more pedestrian friendly and reactivating street life. These are fantastic goals that can be met without destroying one of the city's most important landmarks. Progress is great, but it doesn't have to come at the expense of our history. Preserving the Century Plaza Hotel offers an extraordinary opportunity to create a model for sensitively adapting car-oriented planning to today's pedestrian-oriented goals.

Undeniably Significant

In addition to being the centerpiece of Century City, the Century Plaza Hotel is an important work by an important architect, a landmark in hospitality design and hiring practices, a cultural touchstone for the community, and a treasury of important events in the history of Los Angeles and the nation.

The Century Plaza was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, one of several world-renowned architects enlisted by architect Welton Becket during his firm's master planning for Century City. Yamasaki also designed New York's World Trade Center towers (1973-2001) and Century City's twin Century Plaza Towers (1975). He was one of only about a dozen architects to be featured on the cover of Time magazine.

Part of the first phase of Becket's master plan, the Century Plaza was built as the heart of Century City at the highest point on the property. This phase also included Becket's Gateway Buildings, the adjacent open-air shopping mall, and a pair of residential towers designed by I.M. Pei.

The hotel's elegant grandeur, with its sweeping curve framing the main water feature on Avenue of the Stars, attracted the attention and imagination of Los Angeles. The Century Plaza was a hit from the day it opened, quickly becoming the place for luxury hospitality and large events. This instant landmark ignited demand for the fledgling development, fueling the second phase of expansion that firmly established Century City as a viable alternative urban node to Downtown Los Angeles.

A 1966 Architectural Record article called the Century Plaza "a glamorous paradox, a luxury resort on a mid-city site, designed to attract conventions and large events without interfering with the relaxed atmosphere of a resort." Its curved design minimized the apparent length of the corridors to enhance privacy, while allowing for a view balcony in every room.

The Century Plaza Hotel has become a vital asset and cultural touchstone for Los Angeles through its constant use by a unique cross-section of politics, entertainment, and society. Forty years ago on August 13, 1969, President Richard Nixon and dignitaries from around the world welcomed back the Apollo 11 astronauts at a Century Plaza gala. The hotel earned the nickname the "West Coast White House" in the 1970s and was frequented by Ronald Reagan, who celebrated his two presidential victories there in the 1980s and did much of his work in the hotel's presidential suite while in Los Angeles. Its heavy use by national and world leaders has made the hotel a popular destination for political activism. At the same time, the Century Plaza has hosted countless star-studded galas, charity functions, and awards shows. From national security meetings to Pillsbury Bake-Offs, the Century Plaza has hosted it all. And it still does.

In its first year of operation, the Century Plaza was hailed by the California Fair Employment Practices Commission for its progressive hiring practices, creating an effective, racially integrated workforce at a time when few people of color were hired for supervisory positions or "public-contact" jobs (wait staff, bellmen, etc.). In many ways, the Century Plaza Hotel tells the story of Los Angeles, and the nation, in the latter 20th century.

Clearly, the Century Plaza Hotel has achieved much in its brief lifetime. Yet a common critique of its preservation is that the hotel is less than 50 years old, the general threshold for buildings to become eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Although Los Angeles has no such threshold for local landmarks, the perception that a historic building must be older than we are still poses a problem for preservation-particularly in a city known for its postwar architecture. The Century Plaza is a prime example of the need to give our younger landmarks a chance to get old. Otherwise, there will be nothing left to save by the time these structures come of age in the eyes of the mainstream.

The nation is watching

The Conservancy is hardly alone in the quest to preserve the Century Plaza Hotel. In April 2009, the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Century Plaza on its annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in America. In addition to a growing coalition of neighborhood groups and other organizations, more than 1,200 people from 29 states and nine countries have pledged their support for preserving the hotel. Over 100 letters of support were submitted to the Los Angeles City Planning Department as it launched the environmental review process for the proposed project. The nation is watching to see what Los Angeles chooses to do with one of its most important landmarks.

In June 2009, just after buying the property and six months before announcing the demolition plan, Next Century's Michael Rosenfeld called the Century Plaza Hotel a "jewel in my hometown." We couldn't agree more, and we stand ready and willing to help place this jewel in a twenty-first-century setting.

Diane Keaton on the Century Plaza Hotel

Academy Award-winning actress Diane Keaton is a board member of the Los Angeles Conservancy and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Diane Keaton: The proposed demolition of the Century Plaza Hotel is part of an uninspired assault on 1960s large-scale architecture in Los Angeles. What's going on?

All you have to do is look at it. Look at that curve, that bend, that arc... That's sexy. Built as the centerpiece of Century City, the Century Plaza is perfectly surrounded by a host of massive towers rising over its elegant, sweeping, crescent-shaped design. This is architectural juxtaposition at its most sensual. Think Sophia Loren in the 1960s, encircled by an adoring mass of male fans.

The Century Plaza was designed by Minoru Yamasaki at the peak of his career, just after he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. Unlike New York City's World Trade Center towers, which he also designed, with the Century Plaza, Yamasaki pushed modernism away from the straight angles of its skyscrapers toward a curved, embracing profile.

The Apollo 11 astronauts were welcomed back from the moon at the Century Plaza Hotel. Florence LaRue from the Fifth Dimension ("Up, up and away, in my beautiful balloon...") married the group's manager, Marc Gordon, in a hot air balloon above the hotel. Ronald Reagan and other presidents used the hotel so much it was nicknamed the "West Coast White House."

But here's what really rattles my brain: The Century Plaza's owners tout the proposed development-two 49-story, 570-foot towers (gee, what an interesting new idea)-as "green." It's actually nothing more than greenwashing. The argument that tearing down the Century Plaza is going to be good for the environment is absurd. What is environmentally responsible about tearing down a perfectly fine building that just had a $36 million rehab?

Los Angeles is a great city, and Century City is a great city within a city. A recent Los Angeles Times headline called the Century Plaza Hotel "one wicked curve." We're not going to let that wicked curve meet the wrecking ball.

To learn more and find out how you can get involved, visit savecenturyplaza.org.