In recent years, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s John Ferraro Building, at 111 North Hope Street in downtown LA, has not stood out as a civic landmark. The motley Bunker Hill high-rises of the 1970s and 80s have drawn attention away from the Civic Center that comprises an anemic axis, linking (visually more than physically) the newly restored and renovated City Hall, other government buildings, and the Music Center complex. The Ferraro Building terminates this axis.
Now, with the new Disney Hall to one side and the new Raphael Moneo-designed Cathedral to the other, this civic axis will be invigorated, and the Ferraro Building will attain a stature it never dreamed of.
A. C. Martin & Associates conceived the building in the mid 1960s, not just as functional offices for 4000 employees, but as a symbol of the department’s dual kingdoms of water and power. At night, the building glows like a gigantic lantern, reflected in the water-filled moat surrounding the building, and, in the daytime, the building appears to float upon that water, which hosts families of seagulls and ducks.
The water’s value is not, however, merely scenographic. It provides, as well, cooling capacity for a third of the building’s air conditioning load. Along with recaptured heat from the interior lighting, which eliminated the need for space heating, the pool is an early, forward-thinking example of sustainable design. A recently added solar array extends and makes more visible the building’s conservation measures. Beautiful but low-key, the John Ferraro Building maintains a vision of sustainability for the “new” downtown.
Author Anne Zimmerman, AIA, is Principal of AZ Architecture Studio in Los Angeles and was, at the time of this writing, a member of the arcCA Editorial Board. Photographs courtesy of the Historical Photo Collection of the Department of Water and Power, City of Los Angeles.
Originally published 4th quarter 2001, in arcCA 01.4, “H2O CA.”
