Cahuenga Branch
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
Cahuenga Branch, at 4591 Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood, is the third-oldest branch library in the Los Angeles Public Library system. It was built in 1916 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie and is one of only three surviving Carnegie libraries in Los Angeles, individually designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
the building
Butterfly floor plan. The library was built in a cloverleaf, or butterfly, pattern that let the entire floor be supervised from its center, with a children's department, fiction section, reference room, and both indoor and open-air adult reading rooms branching off.
Brick and tile facade. Built of brick and concrete in the Italian Renaissance Revival style, the building has a low-pitched, overhanging hip roof of clay tile and a tawny, tapestry-patterned brick facade. A symmetrical front centers on a formal entrance with a double stairway and matching volutes linking the sidewalk to a balustraded veranda.
the style
Cahuenga Branch is identified with both the Renaissance Revival and Mediterranean Revival traditions, built in brick and concrete in an Italian Renaissance Revival mode with tile roofing and tapestry brickwork typical of the style.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
Cahuenga Branch is one of three Carnegie-funded libraries surviving in Los Angeles and holds dual landmark status as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and a National Register of Historic Places listing.