|
The Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building is a landmark five-story office building in the Late Moderne style built in 1949 as the headquarters for its namesake company. The building was designed by Paul Revere Williams, the noted African-American Architect. The building is located in the West Adams district of South Los Angeles about 3.5 miles southwest of downtown and 2 miles northwest of Exposition Park and USC. This was the company’s second building to bear this name, the first having been built in 1928. ==Design and Construction== Founded in 1925 Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company (GSM) was the largest African American owned insurance company in the Western United States and was the first offer all persons life insurance regardless of race. The company grew extensively during the 1920s and 1930s serving this previously unserved market. In 1946 the board of the Golden State Mutual Company decided it had outgrown its second 1928 building on Central Ave (also an historic building) and to relocate to a new site at the corner of West Adams Boulevard and South Western Ave (1999 West Adams) in the West Adams District. At that time this location was described as “most attractive business corners outside of downtown Los Angeles” due to its convenient location on major bus lines. The company’s decision to located here, in part, signaled the decline of the Central Avenue District for the City’s African American Population. The company commissioned Paul Williams as the architect for the new building. He designed the 5 story steel and concrete structure (with mezzanine and basement levels) to accommodate over 300 employees and planned its interior “around the way the company operates” with a 400-seat auditorium with state of the art audiovisual equipment, a 150-person cafeteria, and employee lounge and medical department. The generous two story main lobby was flanked by two murals by Charles H. Alston and Hale A. Woodruff that represented the history of African American in California from the state’s founding to the then present day. Construction was completed by the Herbert M. Baruch Corporation with a final cost of $956,000 with an additional $107,000 in furniture. The building opened in August 1949 in a week-long celebration attended by California Lieutenant Governor Goodwin Knight and other dignitaries and cemented the company’s place in the community. It was described in one contemporary source “…as the finest building to be erected and owned by Negroes in the nation” 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「Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building (1949)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|