The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in

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. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites which have been designated by the Los Angeles, California, Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria. History The Historic-Cult ...

(No. 139) in 1975, and was added to the

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in 1987.

History

Opened in 1926, the current Shrine Auditorium replaced an earlier 1906 Al Malaikah Temple which had been destroyed by a fire on January 11, 1920. The fire gutted the structure in just 30 minutes, and nearly killed six firefighters in the process. In the late 1960s, the Shrine was referred to as "The Pinnacle" by the audiences of rock concerts. In 2002, the auditorium underwent a $15 million renovation that upgraded the stage with state-of-the-art lighting and rigging systems, and included new roofing and air conditioning for both the Auditorium and Expo Center, modernized concession stands, additional restrooms, repainting of the Expo Center, and a new performance plaza and parking garage. The entire complex follows a Moroccan architectural motif. Architect and engineer (1922) (14595001970).jpg, The old Shrine Auditorium, 1905. OldShrineAuditorium-1910.jpg, The old Shrine Auditorium, 1910. Shrine Auditorium (254834418).jpg, The Shrine Auditorium in 1990, before the 2002 renovations.

Building

The new auditorium was designed in the Moorish Revival style by San Francisco-based theater architect G. Albert Lansburgh, with local architects John C. Austin and A. M. Edelman associated. When built, the auditorium could hold 1,200 people on stage and seat an audience of 6,442. An engineer who consulted on the project said that the steel

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembla ...

supporting the balcony was the largest ever constructed. The Shrine Auditorium seats approximately 6,300 people (reduced during the 2002 renovation from the original 6,700 capacity) and has a stage wide and deep. The Auditorium features two boxes above the orchestra level holding 40 people each and seven loges on the balcony holding between 36 and 47 seats each (total capacity of the loges: 274). Of the remaining seats, 2,964 are on the orchestra level and 2,982 on the balcony level. Adjacent to the Shrine Auditorium is the Shrine Exposition Hall. File:Al Malaikah Temple - Shrine Auditorium, 655 W. Jefferson Blvd. University Park.jpg, View of the building from University Park. File:Shrine Auditorium side.JPG, Southwest facade File:Shrine Auditorium spire.JPG, South Spire File:Al Malaikah Temple - Shrine Auditorium, 655 W. Jefferson Blvd. University Park, 6.jpg, Royal Street vestibule File:Al Malaikah Temple - Shrine Auditorium, 655 W. Jefferson Blvd. University Park, 4.jpg, vestibule different angle File:Al Malaikah Temple - Shrine Auditorium, 655 W. Jefferson Blvd. University Park, 5.jpg, Detail of stained glass window

Notable events

The Shrine Auditorium has hosted a number of events, mainly for entertainment:

References

External links

Shrine LA! Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall Official Site
*
Image of Stevie Wonder and Patti LaBelle performing at the Shrine Auditorium, 1978.

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections,

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History

Building

Notable events

See also

References

External links