August 28, 2024

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey

Photographs by MARK READ
Words by JANE CROWTHER


If you drive north from San Francisco on the 101, the impressive engineering feat of the Golden Gate Bridge is a postcard view that wows. But further north, nestling among the rolling countryside and a carpet of trees, lies another architectural feast for the eyes – one that seems plucked straight from a sci-fi movie. With its cerulean domes, scalloped roof, textured spire and clean lines, Marin County Civic Center in San Raphael recalls the architecture of Jabba’s Palace in Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi and the roofline of Naboo in The Phantom Menace. As large as any palace and situated in the dip between golden hills, you could almost believe that this mid-century complex housing the county’s hall of justice, library, post office and administration buildings might be expecting a visit from C-3PO and R2-D2, or hosting a celebration parade presided over by Padmé Amidala. 

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey

Marin County Civic Center in San Raphael recalls the architecture of Jabba’s Palace in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and the roofline of Naboo in The Phantom Menace

That’s no coincidence – long-time Marin resident George Lucas conceived and filmed his Star Wars films in the surrounding area (the Ewoks made their home in the redwood forest north of the site), and his creative hub, Skywalker Ranch, sprawls nearby. But his first brush with the centre came in 1970, when the fledgling filmmaker created a future dystopia in THX-1138 and used the municipal buildings as interior and exterior locations for his debut feature film. Self-described as a ‘frustrated architect’, Lucas may not have been good enough at maths to create bricks-and-mortar designs, but as a celluloid world-builder his vision shaped cinema and popular culture. Perhaps his shoot in Frank Lloyd Wright’s truly visionary space was more influential than merely kicking off an interstellar career.

Lucas isn’t the only filmmaker to be struck by the futuristic splendour of the building. When scouting for a place to represent the near-future headquarters of Gattaca for the 1997 film of the same name, director Andrew Niccol chose the roof and the library of the centre to convey the sense of order, precision and sterility of eugenics. Many visitors now recreate the arrival to work for Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman as they enter the hushed building and take the escalator up through the oval rotunda. And perhaps one of sci-fi’s leading lights, Philip K Dick, was inspired by the symmetry and style of the place – he visited the police department in 1971 to report a robbery at his house, fearing the CIA had ransacked his safe. The Marin County Civic Center would not be out of place in one of his bestselling books.

It would have likely pleased Wright to know his work caught the imagination of those looking to the stars – he conceived his building to withstand the test of time but also mature into the environment, planning trees that would not reach their full potential until long after he was gone, and designing structures that would require materials not yet available to him while he sketched. In this way, Wright was something of a time traveller himself – projecting into the future as he conceived the structure in 1958.

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey

Despite his fame and reputation, Wright had not been the first choice to create the campus in San Raphael when the original courthouse burned down and needed replacing. Land was bought in 1956 and a selection committee looked at the submitted work of 26 architects (Wright refused to compete). Wright had featured on the 1957 New Year’s Day cover of House Beautiful magazine and committee member Vera Schultz and planning department head Mary Summers campaigned to offer the job to him without a submitted plan. In March 1957, he was lecturing at nearby Berkeley and was convinced to visit the proposed site. Gazing across the view from a jeep parked on the highest hill, he apparently could envisage a design immediately and took the commission. He was 90 years old and still inspired. ‘In Marin County you have one of the most beautiful landscapes I have seen,’ he said. ‘Here is a crucial opportunity to open the eyes not of Marin County alone, but of the entire country, to what officials gathering together might themselves do to broaden and beautify human lives.’

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey

He certainly brought beauty to the valley – designing a 580 ft-long administrative building connected to an 880 ft-long Hall Of Justice and lozenge-shaped library, juxtaposed in classic Wright vernacular by a 172 ft-tall spire (that he erroneously told officials was a vital radio mast in order to get around height laws). His domes were intended to be gold to reflect the surrounding grassland; his interiors boasted his trademark ‘Cherokee red’ in lacquered doors and walls lining circular atriums; his floors custom tiles and terrazzo. His designs were organic rather than stoic and he incorporated literal organic architecture, planning a line of pine trees surrounding the site that would naturally die off to reveal slower growing native oaks over decades. And he predicted our reliance on the car, conceiving three arches in the building so that citizens could drive through the heart of county matters.

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey
Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey

Wright died in 1959 before ground was broken in 1960, but his vision was brought to life in his absence and in accordance with his dream of a community environment that reflected the natural world around it. Interior woodwork and furniture designed by Wright and Aaron Green was fabricated locally at the San Quentin and Soledad Penitentiary wood shops. The gold dome was given a sustainable life with a switch to a material that would not tarnish, the blue of it (chosen by Wright’s widow, Olgivanna) reflecting the skies above. Future additions (such as the jail completed in 1994 from Wright’s designs) also reflect his theme of circular spaces, orbs, spheres, arcs and arches. All very celestial, contributing to the sense of entering a beautiful spaceship or intergalactic palace when crossing the threshold.  

The civic buildings are always open to the public and would-be Naboo and Gungans wanting to admire the calming campus can do so on a weekly guided tour (Fridays at 10.30am) or self tour via the campus’ app. Perhaps the next-generation’s sci-fi disruptor will be inspired to dream of new worlds gazing through its domed skylights or ascending the escalator through the rich, red concentric circles of the atrium.

Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marin County Civic Center, Space Odyssey


Photographs and video by MARK READ
Marin County Civic Center. 3501 Civic Center Drive, San Rafael, CA 94903, United States. www.marincounty.org

Photographs by MARK READ
Words by JANE CROWTHER


Standing on Broadway, between W Olympic and W 9th, the rosy-hued United Theater soars 13 floors over the historic Broadway Theater District of Downtown LA, a physical manifestation of the dream of independence by Hollywood artists. As dusk falls and the grand dame’s neon flickers on, the building seems like a time capsule – an opulent cathedral to movies from a bygone age and now one of the last remaining atmospheric auditoriums from an era pioneering the so-called ‘seventh art’. Though it was not the first picturehouse to stand in this neighbourhood, the United was a trailblazer in representing a new wave of indie movie stars in Chaplin and his fellow renegades – artists who wanted out of the studio system in order to control their own creative output. In 1919, the group broke away from the studios and formed United Artists, giving themselves agency over the creation, production and distribution of their work – a  standard ambition for any actor working in Hollywood today, but an entirely maverick concept then. Eight years later, they formed the United Artists Theatre Circuit to showcase UA productions, and the United Artists Theatre was conceived as the flagship. Downtown LA was the growing hub for movie life, a mecca for film fans that evolved to become the world’s largest concentrated area of movie houses by 1931. 

At the height of movie mania, Downtown could seat a staggering 15,000 audience members over 12 cinemas. Entertainment began in the district in 1870 when William Abbot started the first permanent theatre in the spot that is now El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic park, welcoming a merry-go-round of theatrical troupes as they travelled the show circuit through then-fledging towns. By the turn of the century Abbot’s business was joined by nickelodeons and vaudeville venues, with promoter Sid Grauman opening a theatre where the Million Dollar now sits on Broadway in 1918. 

united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order

By 1922, Grauman had opened the ‘atmospheric’ Egyptian theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, following it in 1927 with the Chinese down the road. The United began construction in the same year, with crowds in their thousands jostling to see Mary Pickford break ground perched in a steam-driven shovel. Designed by architect C Howard Crane in a gothic design that was a departure from the in-vogue classic revival architecture of the day, the vibe of the venue was thought to have been inspired by Pickford and Fairbanks’ honeymoon to Spain, the soaring vaulted ceilings and intricate plasterwork recalling the lines of the cathedral in Segovia. 

united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

The interiors were decorated with cheeky Anthony Heinsbergen-created murals that showed Chaplin and gang as heroic deities fighting demonic oppressors painted to resemble their former bosses, the controlling studio heads

The bankrolling film stars built the place with wonder in mind – their aim being to transport 2,214 punters to another world the minute they stepped through the door. So the height of the building transcended the highest in the city at the time at 13 storeys (the tallest in LA until the 1950s) and the interiors were decorated with cheeky Anthony Heinsbergen-created murals that showed Chaplin and gang as heroic deities fighting demonic oppressors painted to resemble their former bosses, the controlling studio heads. 

united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

On the building’s exterior, the carved grotesques crouching at the top of terracotta columns and in window arches were cameramen and jazz musicians instead of gargoyles. And the proscenium around the silver screen was a riot of red filigree to match the extravagant ceilings gold painted to look like tapestries and the exotic Byzantine lanterns. The auditorium ceiling featured an oval dome tiled with dazzling mirrors and thousands of crystal drops that shimmered in a draught. Pickford had her own private screening room installed – only accessible via the gentlemen’s restrooms – and continuously running water fountains dotted the lobbies.

Throughout 1927, crews worked around the clock to get the building ready for the January 1928 premiere of Pickford’s My Best Girl. On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order. The movie-star owners regularly appeared at the venue until the Depression forced a temporary closure. When it reopened, the United moved with the demands of the times, installing Todd-AO 70mm widescreen-format projectors, but its single-screen majesty fell out of favour in the 80s when crowds flocked to modern multiplexes. 

united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith
united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

On opening night, 100,000 fans crowded the streets to listen to the event via loudspeakers, the national guard called in to keep order

While many solo-screen cinemas were carved up for multi-screen use or razed entirely, the United survived thanks to a period during Downtown’s down-turn when it became a Spanish-language movie theatre and then a ministry for TV evangelist Gene Scott. The flamboyant Scott, who often wore two pairs of glasses and claimed to hang a Rembrandt in the lobby, bought the building in 1986, installing a neon ‘Jesus Saves’ sign on the roof and preaching to his congregation in the seats and via TV. His occupation helped the palace remain beautiful, his restoration works ensuring its longevity for future generations of wide-eyed audiences and, in 2013, hotel guests when The Ace Hotel took over. The theatre has gone full circle in its identity this year; having been called numerous names over the decades, it has now returned to The United Theater On Broadway after The Ace moved out in January. 

united on broadway, united theater, space odyssey, architecture, mark read, hollywood authentic, greg williams, charlie chaplin, mary pickford, douglas fairbanks, dw griffith

Today, the 1,600-seat venue still retains its original features and such an aura of the roaring 20s that it made the perfect space to convey the hedonistic party atmosphere Damien Chazelle wanted for the opening 40 minutes of Babylon. During a two-week shoot, the The United returned to its heyday – with charlestoning revellers, rivers of fake champagne, mountains of stunt cocaine, chickens and a jazz band. Stepping through its doors now is like time travel – a picture palace stopped in its tracks, the creativity of its founders and the joy they brought audiences felt in its foundations. Perhaps that’s why the unique space still attracts singular performers such as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nick Cave, Johnny Marr and Ariana Grande to its stage, and film premieres continue to roll out the red carpet. Troubadours and artists still keeping the fierce spirit of independence reverberating through its walls… Just as Charlie and Mary intended. 


Photographs and video by MARK READ
The United Theater On Broadway Los Angeles, CA 90015 Los Angeles. theunitedtheater.com/@theunitedtheater