Bullock's Pasadena

Style: Streamline Moderne
City: Los Angeles, CA

Bullock's Pasadena, completed in 1947, was built to be a country club as much as a department store — architects Wurdeman & Becket designed it and everything inside it, in keeping with the company president's vision of shopping as a members-only experience. At 240,000 square feet, it was among the first major department stores built outside a downtown core, a bet on the emerging suburban customer.

the building

Total design. Welton Becket and Walter Wurdemen didn't just design the building — they designed the wallpaper, the display cases, and a mechanical conveyor system that delivered a customer's purchases straight to their car in the parking lot.

the style

Bullock's Pasadena is considered a textbook example of Streamline Moderne applied to a large retail building, a style more often seen on smaller storefronts and theaters than scaled up to a full department store.

the architect

Wurdeman & Becket was the Los Angeles partnership of Welton Becket and Walter Wurdemen, credited here with a 'total design' approach that extended from architecture into every fixture and furnishing inside.

significance

Bullock's Pasadena is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

nearby

Rose Court 0.1 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival
Pasadena Playhouse 0.5 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1925
First Trust Building and Garage 0.5 mi · Mediterranean Vernacular · 1927
Singer Building 0.6 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival
Miss Orton's Classical School for Girls 0.6 mi · Colonial Revival · 1900
Don Carlos Court 0.7 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival

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