Take a Walking Tour of Downtown Los Angeles’s Iconic Architecture

Walk the length of Grand Avenue from Temple Street to 5th Street, and you’ll move through one of Los Angeles’s most important art and modern architecture corridors.

Home to museums, theaters, and concert halls—including three buildings designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architects—this stretch draws millions of visitors each year and anchors a vibrant district in the heart of downtown.

Grand Avenue sits atop Bunker Hill and borders the Los Angeles Civic Center; together they form the cultural and administrative core of downtown. The neighborhood has undergone sweeping transformations since the mid-19th century. Bunker Hill was first developed in the late 1860s as an enclave of Victorian-style mansions and later became a dense, working-class community. Mid-20th-century redevelopment reshaped it into its current state as a hub for civic life and the arts.

“The idea of putting cultural institutions along Grand Avenue dates to the early 20th century, but it really has emerged and evolved as a cultural corridor since the 1950s,” explains Gail Ostergren, a historian specializing in urban, architectural, and Southern California history at the Getty Conservation Institute. “You’ve got a great collection of midcentury and late-modern architecture along there, both by significant local firms and internationally renowned architects—Frank Gehry falling into both categories.”

That evolution is best understood on foot, and Ostergren has guided many through it as part of the Conservation Institute’s International Course on the Conservation of Modern Heritage, for mid-career professionals. An Angeleno since age 4 with deep knowledge of the city’s built environment, she began leading tours as a volunteer with the Los Angeles Conservancy before undertaking her PhD at UCLA, making her a natural fit to help course participants appreciate Bunker Hill’s architectural richness.

“It’s an area where you can get out and see a swath of buildings that were developed primarily in the second half of the 20th century into the 21st century in a reasonable walking distance,” she notes, offering an unusual opportunity in Los Angeles to experience decades of design innovation along one compact, coherent route.

Though you need to be a course participant to get the full Ostergren tour experience, you can still take yourself on her route.

Start on Temple Street at the Hall of Records

The 1962 Los Angeles County Hall of Records is a rare high-rise by modernist architect Richard Neutra and his partner Robert Alexander. The T-shaped building is distinguished by its distinctive aluminum louvers—designed to reduce glare and heat inside the structure—eight story extruded terracotta screen, and expressive exterior artwork. Among the most notable pieces is Topographical Map, a colorful granite and mosaic mural by Joseph Young showing water sources in Los Angeles County.

At the time of its construction, Neutra described the building as the “world’s largest filing cabinet.” Its blend of ornament, sculpture, and sleek modernist form marks a shift toward a more expressive, less minimalist chapter in Los Angeles civic architecture.

Cross Temple Street to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Dedicated in 2002, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels—designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Rafael Moneo—is one of Los Angeles’s most striking examples of contemporary sacred architecture. Rising 11 stories, the cathedral is a monumental, geometrically complex structure clad in warm‑toned concrete that references California’s adobe missions.

Visitors enter through a pair of massive bronze doors by sculptor Robert Graham, above which his serene statue Our Lady of the Angels presides. The cathedral’s interior, with seating for up to 3,000 worshippers, is bathed in soft, warm light that streams in through alabaster windows. Thirty-seven fresco-like tapestries by artist John Nava adorn the sanctuary walls. Set within a 2.5‑acre plaza, the cathedral is also engineered with base isolation for seismic resilience, making it both a spiritual and structural landmark in the city.

Continue north on Temple Street and cross Grand Avenue to The Music Center

Perched atop Bunker Hill, The Music Center is a monument to midcentury Los Angeles’s cultural ambitions. Designed by Welton Becket & Associates as a unified “total design,” the complex comprises a trio of New Formalist landmarks—the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum, and Ahmanson Theatre—arranged around a lively plaza animated by fountains and public art. Completed between 1964 and 1967, the campus has undergone some modifications, including the replacement of the Ahmanson’s primary facade and a plaza redesign to improve accessibility. It remains one of the city’s great civic stages, offering sweeping views of downtown and anchoring Grand Avenue’s modern architectural corridor.

Before leaving the plaza, be sure to admire the headquarters of the Department of Water and Power, another modern masterwork (1965, Albert C. Martin & Associates), and the spectacular view across Grand Park of one of the city’s most iconic buildings, Los Angeles City Hall (1928, John Parkinson, John C. Austin, and Albert C. Martin Sr.).

Cross 1st Street to the Walt Disney Concert Hall

Pritzker Laureate Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall is the sculptural heart of Grand Avenue—a masterpiece of deconstructivist architecture and one of the most acoustically sophisticated venues in the world. Opened in 2003, it embodies the creative spirit of Los Angeles and serves as home to the LA Philharmonic, the LA Master Chorale, and visiting artists from around the globe. Its stainless steel curves wrap a warm, sail‑like interior of Douglas fir and red oak, creating a space that feels both intimate and boldly experimental. A small, elevated garden wraps around the rear and side of the hall and is publicly accessible from the street. A series of discreet staircases and walkways allow visitors to climb up and over the building for delightful and unexpected views of the structure and its surroundings.

Continue south on Grand Avenue to the Museum of Contemporary Art

Opened in 1986, MOCA Grand Avenue, designed by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Arata Isozaki, is a bold, postmodern, seven-story landmark. With three stories underground, the structure is an intimate, human‑scaled counterpoint to Bunker Hill’s towers. Clad in red sandstone and organized around a sunken central courtyard, the museum’s inward‑facing design draws on East Asian spatial traditions to create a contemplative world for contemporary art.

Turn onto 3rd Street to the Bank of America Plaza on Hope Street

Completed in 1974 by Albert C. Martin & Associates, this 55-story, late‑modernist skyscraper—one of the first high-rises on Bunker Hill—stands in sharp contrast to MOCA’s low‑slung footprint. Oriented diagonally so its four faces align with true north, south, east, and west, the tower’s clean vertical lines exemplify the corporate minimalism of Los Angeles’s skyline in the 1970s and ’80s. Touted at its opening as the “safest structure in Los Angeles,” it was engineered to withstand major disasters. Supplies to operate the building independently for two weeks are stored inside.

Continue south on Hope Street to the Bunker Hill Steps and descend to the Los Angeles Central Library

Architect Bertram Goodhue’s Los Angeles Central Library (pictured at top), completed in 1926, blends ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean Revival influences with an Art Deco style and early modernist form. It serves as the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system—founded in 1872—and is celebrating its centennial this year. Threatened with demolition in the 1960s and ’70s, the building became the rallying point that inspired the founding of the Los Angeles Conservancy, whose advocacy ultimately saved the structure and reshaped the city’s skyline. Following a catastrophic arson fire in 1986, it reopened in 1993 with a sensitive expansion and the creation of Maguire Gardens. The library now stands as both a cultural treasure and triumph of historic preservation in the heart of Bunker Hill.

End at 5th and Flower Streets at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel

John Portman’s Westin Bonaventure Hotel is one of Los Angeles’s most iconic works of postmodern futurism. Its mirrored surfaces, sky bridges, and exterior glass elevators create a dizzying sense of motion, while the soaring atrium and maze‑like interior exemplify Portman’s “city within a city” concept. Long celebrated and critiqued for its space-age, disorienting design, the Bonaventure remains a cinematic landmark and a defining statement of 1970s architectural ambition in downtown Los Angeles.

Now that you’re at the end of the tour, perhaps you’d like to ride one of those glass elevators to the Bonaventure’s 34th floor and revel in the skyline views from the rotating cocktail lounge. It’s an excellent locale to begin plotting your next downtown adventure. There is so much more to explore.