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The Bradbury Building is an architectural landmark located at 304 South Broadway at West 3rd Street in downtown Los Angeles, California. Built in 1893, the building was commissioned by Los Angeles gold-mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury and constructed by draftsman George Wyman from the original design by Sumner Hunt.〔 It appears in many works of fiction and has been the site of many movie and television shoots and music videos. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977, one of only four office buildings in Los Angeles to be so honored.〔 It was also designated a landmark by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission〔Muchnich, Suzanne. ("Old Friends Meet Again : Bradbury Building, 98, Sits for Photographer, 80" ) ''Los Angeles Times'' (August 3, 1991)〕 and is the city's oldest landmarked building.〔("Bradbury Building Renovation" ) ''Los Angeles Times'' (November 12, 1989)〕 ==History== Lewis L. Bradbury (November 6, 1823 – July 15, 1892)〔Wakim, Marielle. ("It Happened This Week in L.A. History: The City Mourns Lewis L. Bradbury" ) ''Los Angeles'' (July 16, 1892)〕〔("Louis L. Bradbury" ) on the ''Family History Machine" website〕〔("Bradbury Family Papers: A Mexican-American Family's Story, 1876-1965" ) on the University of California, Davis University Library website〕 was a gold-mining millionaire〔 – he owned the Tajo mine in Sinaloa, Mexico – who became a real estate developer in the later part of his life.〔(Biography of Lewis Bradbury )〕 In 1892 he began planning to construct a five-story building at Broadway and Third Street in Los Angeles, close to the Bunker Hill neighborhood. A local architect, Sumner Hunt, was hired to design the building, and turned in a completed design,〔("Bradbury Building" ) on the Los Angeles Conservancy website〕 but Bradbury dismissed Hunt's plans as inadequate to the grand building he wanted. He then hired George Wyman, one of Hunt's draftsmen, to do the design. Bradbury supposedly felt that Wyman understood his own vision of the building better than Hunt did, but there is no concrete evidence that Wyman changed Hunt's design, which has raised some controversy about who should be considered to be the architect of the building.〔 Wyman – who had no formal education as an architect, and was earning $5 a week working for Hunt〔 – at first refused the offer, but then supposedly he and his wife had a message from his dead brother Mark using a planchette board.〔 The message was reported to be: ''Mark Wyman / take the / Bradbury building / and you will be / successful'' with the word "successful" written upside down. After this, Wyman took the job, and is now regarded as the architect of the building. Wyman's grandson, the science fiction publisher Forrest J. Ackerman, owned the original document containing the message until his death. The design of the building was influenced by the 1887 science fiction book ''Looking Backward'' by Edward Bellamy,〔 which described a utopian society in 2000. In Bellamy's book, the average commercial building was described as a "vast hall full of light, received not alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of which was a hundred feet above ... The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded the interior." The influence of this description can be seen in the Bradbury.〔 The building opened in 1893, some months after Bradbury's death in 1892,〔 and was completed in 1894, at the total cost of $500,000,〔 about three times the original budget.〔Ferrell, David. ("The Bradbury Sparkles as Jewel in City Landscape" ) ''Los Angeles Times'' (October 10, 2002)〕 In 1991, a $7 million restoration〔 and seismic retrofitting was undertaken by developer Ira Yellin and project architect Brenda Levin Associates. As part of the restoration, a storage area at the south end of the building was converted to a new rear entrance portico, connecting the building more directly to Biddy Mason Park and the adjacent Broadway Spring Center parking garage. The building's lighting system was also redesigned, bringing in alabaster wall sconces from Spain. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bradbury Building」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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