Los Angeles Times Magazine

February 2, 2003

MUSEUMS

Treasure of the Arroyo Seco

The Southwest Museum building awaits its fate

By MICHAEL T. JARVIS

With its Mission Revival architecture and dramatic

tower, the Southwest Museum building on Mt. Washington

is often mistaken for a monastery. "People always ask,

'Was it meant to be a museum?' " says Kim Walters,

library director for the museum. That question has

taken on new urgency in L.A.'s historic preservation

community since November, when the Southwest and Autry

Museum of Western Heritage agreed to merge.

Not that anyone fears destruction for the Southwest

building, which Los Angeles declared a Historical

Cultural Monument in 1984 and which vies with the Los

Angeles Museum of Natural History for the title of the

city's oldest museum building. But amid reports that

Autry officials hope to relocate the Southwest to a

projected new building at the Autry complex in

Griffith Park, preservationists are anxious to retain

pride of place for a treasure of L.A.'s historic

Arroyo Seco district. (Ironically, construction

continues on a transit station linking the Southwest

on the MTA Gold Line that's scheduled to launch in

July.) "The [original] building is the largest piece

in the [Southwest] collection," says Nicole Possert,

secretary and past president of the Highland Park

Heritage Trust. "It's one of the icons of Arroyo

history and culture."

That culture was in full bloom in 1907, when Charles

Fletcher Lummis, former Los Angeles Times editor,

renaissance man and indefatigable amateur ethnographer

of Native American history, incorporated the Southwest

Museum (this while serving as city librarian for Los

Angeles). The canyons of Highland Park, the

neighboring community of Garvanza and the area along

the Arroyo Seco sheltered a vibrant enclave of artists

and intellectuals, many associated with the Arts and

Crafts movement. Other Arroyo residents included

writer Mary Austin, painter Maynard Dixon and Gutzon

Borglum, the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore.

Lummis was bent on giving the Southwest a

one-of-a-kind home in the rustic hills of the Arroyo

area, which ranges from Pasadena to downtown Los

Angeles. Architects Sumner P. Hunt and Silas R. Burns

toiled for four years under constant haranguing from

Lummis, who refused to change the visionary design for

the museum's tower. "He was not going to budge on

that," says Walters. The interior caracol (Spanish for

snail) staircase at the tower's center is a stunning

170-step spiral; in 1913 it was the first such

architectural feat attempted in the United States.

Opened in Highland Park in 1914, the museum comprises

about 48,000 square feet plus the separate Braun

Research Library. The much-loved museum entrance is a

Mayan-style facade connected to a 250-foot-long tunnel

set with dioramas of historic Indian life in the

Americas. The tunnel ends at an elevator rising 108

feet to the museum's lower lobby. Its multileveled

archive contains exhibition halls for pieces from the

approximately 220,000 archeological and ethnographic

items in the Southwest collection.

For now, the original Southwest remains open. But what

the building's fate will be in the Autry era is

anyone's guess. Given the Southwest's financial

instability for more than a decade before the proposed

merger, the aging structure could be deemed unfit to

house its priceless collection. "Deferred maintenance

causes problems down the road, and we are 'down the

road,' " says Possert. "As a community resident, I'm

looking for the building's complete historic

preservation."

Autry officials will confirm only that architectural

firm Levin & Associates has been retained to evaluate

existing facilities at the Autry and the Southwest.

But, says Autry Museum director John Gray, "The

[original Southwest] building is fundamentally

important to the history and character of Los Angeles.

The intent is to do something wonderful with it."

Friends of the building such as Ken Bernstein,

director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles

Conservancy, are practicing optimism. "We're not in

the position to dictate to the Autry, but we would

hope this will remain a vital part of the operation."

*

Southwest Museum, 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles
(323)221-2164