New program allots 1% of new buildings’ costs to paintings, sculptures. In South L.A., employees and clients take notice.
The new Los Angeles County Administration Building rises four stories above Vermont Avenue, between 83rd and 84th streets, its clean lines and green-glass front striking a contrast with the auto body shops and parking lots nearby.
But something else also sets the county social services hub apart from the squat concrete structures around it: tile murals inside and outside the building, glazed with digitally manipulated photographs of oak trees to soften the bustle of South Los Angeles.
Completed this December, the building is the first developed under the Civic Art Program, which allots 1% of new county buildings’ construction and design costs for art.
Betty Frazer, waiting in line for homeless assistance in advance of her pending eviction, said the wall-sized mural in the lobby, which depicts a fence threading across rolling hills and alongside majestic oaks, gave her a “sense of beauty.”
“It makes it look peaceful,” said Frazer, 44, of South Los Angeles, “even though it may not be. You come here and it’s a headache.”