Inside the Southwest Museum Part II: The Building

The following is the second in a three-part series on the in Mount Washington. Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch recently toured the soon-to-be 100-year-old building, and got a first hand look at the extensive work that is being done to catalog and preserve the massive collection stored there.

focused on the state of the collection and the restoration effort. In part two of the series, Patch focuses on the condition of the historic structure. In the final installment, we will look into the future of the museum and the arguments for and against reopening the building as a museum.

For more background on the Southwest Museum and the debate over its future,

The Southwest Museum of the American Indian opened its doors in 1914, establishing itself as the city of Los Angeles’ first museum.

Designed by visionary artist and writer Charles Fletcher Lummis with local architects Hunt and Burns, the Mount Washington building is among the city’s oldest structures and perhaps Northeast Los Angeles’ most valued cultural landmark.

When arguments for or against the reopening of the Southwest Museum are logged, the value of the building’s past is never questioned.

What’s in doubt, according to the Autry National Center, who merged with the struggling Southwest Museum and took control of the historic building in 2003, is the viability of its future as a functioning museum.

For supporters, though, the Southwest Museum offers a unique opportunity to work within the flexible parameters of the Sate Historical Building Code to bring the museum up to modern standards, while maintaining its historical integrity.

Issues of Access and Safety

Among the obstacles to the Southwest Museum’s future as a functioning museum are issues of American’s with Disability Act (ADA) and Fire/Life Safety compliance.

“Nothing about this building is ADA complaint,” said Joe Bollert, director of the Autry’s Southwest Museum Project.

According to Bollert, nowhere are those compliance issues more glaring than in the museum’s Caracol Tower, which houses a reinforced concrete spiral staircase at its center.

According to a 2004 study conducted by preservation architects Levin & Associates, the stairway does not comply with modern safety codes, in that it only provides a single means of access and exit, and does not provide a single exit that discharges directly to the exterior of the building.

“There’s one way in and there’s one way out,” explained Steven Karr, director of the Southwest Museum. “By modern codes, we’re not allowed to have more than a dozen people in here at any given time.”

Nicole Possert, who sits on the steering committee of the Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition, which has for years pressured the Autry to reopen the Southwest Museum, said that the issues with the Caracol tower as not as daunting as they may seem.

The top floor of the tower was designed as an office for Lummis, she said, and was never intended to store or display museum artifacts.

“Lummis never intended using the tower for display, and we agree with that,” Possert said.

There are other access issues at the museum, including the lack of a second exit in the basement of the museum’s smaller Torrance Tower.

Further, according to the Levin report, the mezzanines in Torrance Tower are accessible by only a single staircase, and the tower does not afford any room for additional stairways or elevators that would make it eligible to function as a public access space.

The Levin report states that there are “severe” access issues for those with physical disabilities. In addition to the Caracol and Torrance Towers both being essentially off limits for code compliance issues, only the lower level of the main lobby is accessible by elevator.

According to the Levin report, providing access to the second floor by elevator would be possible, but not easy.

“Extending the elevator to Level Two would require raising the roof of the existing elevator tower above the adjacent museum roof to house the necessary overhead equipment,” the report states. “This approach was not considered in the present study, as the alteration to the historic building profile was judged severe.”

However, the Levin report also envisions the construction of a more accessible museum. It lays out a plan for grading the upper parking lot to increase the amount of available parking and providing direct access to the adjacent Braun Library, which would in turn provide access to the main building via a new elevator.

The Catch-22 of the Southwest Museum

LaLena Lewark, director of the Southwest Museum’s collection, said that the museum presents a Catch-22 scenario, in which the work it would take to make it a functioning museum would strip it of its historical integrity.

"You don't want to mess too much with the historic integrity of the building, especially the interior," she said.

However, Possert said that the Levin & Associates plan was conducted by a team of historic preservationists, and that they were guided by the Secretary of the Interior's standards for the treatment of historic properties.

"The myth about working in historic buildings is that you can't touch anything," Possert said. "The building has been looked at by a lot of professionals and there has been no disagreement in the conclusions of the Levin Rehabilitation Plan from 2004.  This report concluded the Southwest Museum can be brought up to museum display standards, both physically and economically.

Check Back Tomorrow for Part III of the series, in which Patch looks at the future of Southwest Museum and considerations of cost and ongoing maintenance.