Los Angeles, California, USA
“This is not the first time Norman Foster and Apple have teamed up to restore and preserve an important landmark for a new Apple Store,” states architecture critic Christian Narkiewicz-Laine.
“Apple already has stores in a historic bank in Paris and in a 19th-century warehouse in London.”
“In 2018, Foster renovated the 1903 neoclassical Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C., a remarkable urban treasure by Ackerman & Ross and meticulously restored the historic building for a retail adaptive reuse born again as the Apple Carnegie Library.”
That project won a 2020 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.
“This time,” Narkiewicz-Laine continues, “it is the Tower Theatre in downtown Los Angeles—a seminal building designed by S. Charles Lee in 1927. Lee designed this powerful Baroque Revival style Tower with innovative French, Spanish, Moorish, and Italian elements all executed in terracotta. Its interior was modeled after the Paris Opera House. Its exterior features a prominent clock tower, the very top of which was removed after an earthquake.”
“The Tower was the first film house in Los Angeles to be wired for talking pictures, and it was the location of the sneak preview and Los Angeles premiere of Warner Bros.’ revolutionary part talking The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson. It was the first theater in Los Angeles to be air conditioned.”
The entire preservation community should be indebted to the tech giant for making an equally colossal gesture to saving American architectural heritage.”
Working with Gruen Associates, Foster will undertake a painstaking restoration of the former movie palace, which includes the required seismic and structural retrofits to the 94-year old building.
The project is intended to largely restore the Tower to its original appearance by removing mid-century alterations, recreating a portion of its iconic clock tower that was lost after a 1970s earthquake, refurbishing its terra cotta exterior, and cleaning its interior.
A post-renovation PR photograph shows a whiter, brighter interior, with many of the structure’s stunning interior details on display.
The new Tower will house not only an Apple retail store – but also will have spaces with a “theatrical component” for programs, classes, and possibly even live events.
Architects: Foster + Partners
Architects of Record: Gruen Associates
Original Architect: S. Charles Lee (1927)
Client: Apple Computer