Gas Company Tower

Place

Gas Company Tower

The 1991 Gas Company Tower rises in a series of cliff-like setbacks and inverted corners, with an elliptical top of blue glass symbolizing the trademark blue flame of the building’s primary tenant

Place Details

Address

555 W. Fifth St. Los Angeles, CA 90014
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Property Type

Community

Gas Company Tower

Photo by Annie Laskey/L.A. Conservancy | Photo by Annie Laskey/L.A. Conservancy

This fifty-two-story building was designed by Richard Keating of the legendary firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). SOM is one of the world’s leading architectural firms and creator of such landmarks as Sears Tower in Chicago and the Lever House in New York.

The Gas Company Tower was the second building whose height is a result of Maguire Partners’ Central Library air rights exchange (the other is U.S. Bank Tower).

The building rises in a series of cliff-like setbacks and inverted corners, with an elliptical top of blue glass symbolizing the trademark blue gas flame of the building’s primary tenant and joint venture partner, Southern California Gas Company.

Inside is an unusual lobby, with a wall of windows looking out to an enormous mural by Frank Stella painted on the side of the adjacent building. The mural, titled “Dusk,” is the public art component of the building.

In the area between the mural and the lobby is a water installation comprising hundreds of small jets of water in straight lines, which continue under the glass wall and inside the lobby under transparent strips of flooring.