Detail View: Archivision Base to Module 9: Bunker Hill Steps (Los Angeles)

Preferred Title: 
Bunker Hill Steps (Los Angeles)
Alternate Title: 
Bunker Hill Steps
Image View: 
View up one side of the water channel of the 103 steps
Creator: 
Lawrence Halprin (American landscape architect, 1916-2009)
Location: 
site: Los Angeles, California, United States
Location Note: 
500 South Hope Street
GPS: 
+34.050959-118.254879
Date: 
completed 1990 (creation)
Cultural Context: 
American
Style Period: 
Postmodern; Twentieth century
Work Type 1: 
fountain
Work Type 2: 
stair
Classification: 
landscape architecture
Material: 
paving material; stone
Technique: 
construction (assembling); gardening
Description: 
The Bunker Hill Steps linking Hope Street to Fifth Street is Los Angeles' architectural translation of Rome's Spanish Steps, a debt that makes this project a textbook example of postmodernism in landscape architecture. Designed by Lawrence Halprin, the 103 steps are divided by a raised, mock rock bottom cascading water channel that originates at the top of the stairs in a fountain. At the base, the steps lead to the LA Public Library (LIbrary Tower) and rise to connect to Financial District. The stairs curve around garden plantings and public art by Robert Graham and others. Halprin?s nearby designs include the Maguire Gardens at the foot of the library. (Source: Los Angeles Times [online edition]; http://www.latimes.com/)
Collection: 
Archivision Addition Module Eight
Identifier: 
1A1-HALA-BHS-A10
Rights: 
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.