Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles: architect, style and history

The Shrine Auditorium opened in 1926, designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in a Moorish Revival style for the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners, replacing an earlier 1906 temple that had burned down in 1920 in a fire that gutted the structure in just 30 minutes. It became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 139 in 1975 and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

the building

A $15 million refit. A 2002 renovation modernized the stage with new lighting and rigging systems, added new roofing and air conditioning across the Auditorium and Expo Center, and built a new performance plaza and parking garage — all while keeping the complex's Moroccan architectural motif intact.

the style

Lansburgh dressed the complex in Moorish Revival forms, carried through as a Moroccan architectural motif across the entire Auditorium and Expo Hall — an exotic idiom fitting for a building headquartered by the Shriners' Al Malaikah Temple.

significance

The building holds dual landmark status — Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 139 (1975) and the National Register of Historic Places (1987) — and by the late 1960s, rock-concert audiences knew it as 'The Pinnacle.'

nearby

Ahn Family House 0.2 mi · American Foursquare · 1900
University Religious Center 0.2 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1965
Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow Center for International & Public Affairs 0.2 mi · New Formalism · 1967
Doheny Memorial Library 0.3 mi · Renaissance Revival · 1932
Bovard Administration Building 0.3 mi · Romanesque Revival · 1921
USC Physical Education building 0.3 mi · Romanesque Revival · 1930

All 315 buildings in Los Angeles