The glamour of the entertainment industry and the tidy forms of Modernist architecture converged at the 1938 CBS headquarters on Los Angeles's Sunset Boulevard, designed by architect William Lescaze. The Swiss-born Lescaze, commissioned to create a new kind of workplace typology—the broadcast facility—applied the hallmarks of the International Style to the building's graphic exterior: right angles, pilotis, and an all-white paint job. On the inside, though, he applied the softer touches of Streamline Moderne, the stylistic compromise between his Old World austerity and Hollywood's obsession with Art Deco—whimsical porthole windows and glass bricks; sinuous curves instead of sharp corners; grooves on the horizontal surfaces.
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