Long Beach City Hall and Library [1976]

Allied Architects

Imagery: Wayne Thom

A massive project commissioned by Long Beach City and designed by Allied Architects – a consortium that included architects Gibbs & Gibbs; Homolka & Associates; Killingsworth, Brady & Associates, and Kenneth S. Wing and Associates, the LBCH complex – though not without its problems – is a late-Modernist civic triumph. The tower itself presents a glass box suspended by concrete piers that appear extruded from the ground, with terraced surrounds (by landscape architect Peter Walker) offering similar projections as a means of affording patrons and passers-by with places to congregate and lounge. The Courthouse, a glass-curtain walled structure of the Corporate International Style, part of the six-block complex has since been demolished, with many of the other structure’s fates similarly hanging in the balance due to a lack of upkeep and planning difficulties.

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