Free previewStop 8 of Hollywood Walk of Fame Walking Tour: Chinese Theatre to Hollywood and Vine
The Record Stack Nobody Meant
Look up. That round white tower rising just north of Hollywood and Vine is the Capitol Records Building, thirteen stories of wide curved awnings stacked one on another, with a tall spike rising from the top. Your first thought is probably the same as everyone's: it looks like a pile of records on a turntable, with the spindle pointing at the sky.
That resemblance is the joke at the heart of this place, because nobody planned it. The man who drew this tower was Louis Naidorf, and he was 24 years old. He was a young architect at Welton Becket Associates, and the design grew out of drawings he'd made in graduate school. It is considered the world's first circular office building.
Naidorf's firm kept the client's identity secret. So the stack of records, the spindle, was a coincidence.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 8 of Hollywood Walk of Fame Walking Tour: Chinese Theatre to Hollywood and Vine (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
