Capitol Records Tower, Hollywood, 1960s

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Capitol Records Tower, Hollywood, 1960s — Archive & Atlas

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Hollywood, Los Angeles

Capitol Records Tower, Hollywood, 1960s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1960–1969

AA-2026-432DFB

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Someone in Los Angeles took a perfectly good stack of vinyl records, decided it should be a skyscraper, and the city said yes. The Capitol Records Building went up in 1956 as the world's first round office tower, built by a business that had just spent a decade convincing America that music came from a machine and not from a person in a room, and the architects thought the building might as well look like the product.

The spire on top blinks out Morse code for HOLLYWOOD, a detail put there for pilots and passersby in an era when a company still wanted its logo legible from the sky as proof of arrival. Below it, the neighbourhood does what Hollywood Boulevard always did in this decade, which is compete for attention with a hot dog stand's marquee and a finance company's loan sign, none of it embarrassed to be sharing a skyline with a record label's monument to itself.

Dusk light catches the tower's ribbed sunshades, engineered by acoustic scientists to help musicians hear themselves inside a circular building, a problem nobody had needed solved until somebody built a building shaped like a stack of records and then had to make it work as an actual studio.

The historian's note

The Capitol Records Building at 1750 Vine Street in Hollywood was completed in 1956, designed by Welton Becket and Louis Naidorf. It was widely reported at the time, incorrectly, to have been designed to resemble a stack of 45 rpm records, a myth the architects never confirmed but never fully denied either.

The tower's blinking spire has spelled out HOLLYWOOD in Morse code since its construction, a nod to the neighbourhood installed at the request of the studio's founders. The building housed recording studios in its basement level, engineered with special acoustic considerations for the circular structure, and served as Capitol Records' headquarters through the decade this photograph documents.

By the 1960s the tower had become a fixture of the Hollywood skyline, recognised nationally through its frequent appearance in music industry press and its status as one of the first buildings in the United States constructed specifically as a circular office tower.

Subjects & keywords — each links to a search

Capitol Records Building·Hollywood·1960s Los Angeles·circular skyscraper·record industry architecture·midcentury commercial architecture·dusk cityscape·music industry landmark·vintage neon signage·urban Americana·blue hour sky·collectible Hollywood print·Vine Street·editorial location photography·Lum's restaurant sign

Capitol Records Buildingstructure · depicts Hollywood, Los Angelesplace · location

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Particulars

Creator: Unattributed
Date: 1960–1969
Place: Hollywood, Los Angeles — Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard, view toward the Capitol Records tower
Subject: Capitol Records Building
Original format: jpg
Original held: Yes, by the archive
Rights: Open