{"id":1953,"date":"2018-01-21T21:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T03:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2018-01-21T21:00:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T03:00:31","slug":"the-theme-building-at-los-angeles-international-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=1953","title":{"rendered":"The theme building at Los Angeles International Airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport was a true Modern icon when construction was completed on it in 1961. The landmark is now recognized worldwide as a space-age symbol of the airport, and the city itself.<\/p>\n<p>Designed as part of a major postwar expansion project at the airport, the final blueprint ended up being a scaled-down version of the original vision of an enormous glass dome. The structure was seen by planners as a central focal point surrounded by the terminal buildings and parking structures.\u00a0The original, and revised designs, were spearheaded by the architectural firm of Pereira and Lucian.<\/p>\n<p>The Theme Building features a UFO style restaurant suspended from the center of two massive crossed arches constructed with stucco-covered steel. A screen wall of decorative concrete block surrounds the building, adding another Mid-Century Modern touch. The Los Angeles City Council designated the building as\u00a0a historic-cultural monument in 1993. A\u00a0$4 million renovation including\u00a0electric lighting designed by Walt Disney Imagineering\u00a0was completed before the Encounter Restaurant was opened in 1997.\u00a0The Restaurant was closed in December of 2013, but\u00a0the building&#8217;s observation level is still open on weekends.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1954\" src=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/LAX-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"657\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/LAX-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/LAX-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/LAX.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 657px) 100vw, 657px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport was a true Modern icon when construction was completed on it in 1961. The landmark is now recognized worldwide as a space-age symbol of the airport, and the city itself. Designed as part of a major postwar expansion project at the airport, the final blueprint ended up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[582,585,250,580,584,583,579,581],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation-news","tag-imagineering","tag-landmark","tag-lax","tag-los-angeles-international-airport","tag-lucian","tag-pereira","tag-theme-building","tag-walt-disney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1955,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/1955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}