Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall

Stand on the pavement along West Jefferson Boulevard and look up. Pale stucco walls rise above you, warm in the Southern California sun. Two domed towers stand at the corners, and a row of pointed, horseshoe-shaped arches runs across the front. The traffic hums behind you, students from the nearby university drift past with coffee cups... and yet the building in front of you looks as if it belongs on the edge of a North African desert. That contrast is the whole story of this place.

This is the Shrine Auditorium, with its companion, the Expo Hall. It sits just north of the University of Southern California campus, in a neighbourhood of brick fraternity houses, palm trees and wide avenues. For a century, this building has hosted some of the most watched nights in American entertainment. Before any of that, though, it was a temple. To understand why it looks the way it does, we need to meet the people who built it.

The builders were the Shriners. That is the common name for a fraternal organisation whose full title is the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Despite the name, the order was founded in the United States in the nineteenth century. Its members borrowed costumes, titles and symbols from an imagined Middle East — the red fez is the most famous example. The local chapter in Los Angeles is called Al Malaikah, and this auditorium was built as its home.

That explains the architecture. The style is usually called Moorish Revival. The Moors were the Muslim peoples of North Africa and medieval Spain, and their buildings used domes, tall slender towers, and arches shaped like a horseshoe. In the early twentieth century, American architects loved to borrow this look for theatres and lodges. Here, it was more than decoration. It was the Shriners' own theatrical fantasy, built in reinforced concrete.

Here is something many visitors do not know. This is not the first Shrine temple on this spot. An earlier building stood here, and it was destroyed by fire in 1920. The Shriners decided to rebuild on a far grander scale. They wanted a hall that would be fireproof, modern and enormous. The building you see now opened in 1926, designed by the architect John C. Austin, who also worked on several other Los Angeles landmarks of that era.

And enormous it was. When it opened, the Shrine Auditorium was among the largest theatres in the United States, with seating for more than six thousand people. Think about that for a moment. Many grand opera houses in Europe hold only a third of that number. The stage is also very large, wide and deep enough for full orchestras, elaborate sets and, later, the camera rigs of national television. Size became the building's great advantage.

Inside, the desert theme continues. The great hall is designed to feel like you are sitting under a vast canopy, with a high, decorated ceiling and a huge chandelier hanging at its centre. Gold, deep red and carved detail fill the space. If you have the chance to step inside for a show, take a moment before the lights go down. Look up, then look back at the balcony. The scale of the room is easiest to feel from your seat.

Hollywood noticed this building very quickly. The film studios were only a short drive away, and a hall this large was perfect for filming crowd scenes. In the 1933 film King Kong, a famous theatre sequence used the Shrine. Two decades later, the 1954 version of A Star Is Born filmed an awards scene here. In a curious twist, real awards ceremonies would soon follow the fictional ones.

For decades, the Shrine was one of the main homes of the Academy Awards. The Oscars were held here many times across the twentieth century, alongside other venues in the city. The Grammys, the Emmys and many other televised ceremonies have also used this stage. So when you picture film stars stepping out of long black cars onto a red carpet, there is a good chance the building behind them was this one.

Not every famous moment here was glamorous. In January 1984, Michael Jackson was filming a television commercial on this stage. During a staged concert scene, a pyrotechnic effect set his hair alight. He was injured and taken to hospital. The incident made headlines around the world. It is a reminder that this building was never only a ceremonial space. It has always been a working stage, with real risks behind the spectacle.

Now turn your attention to the Expo Hall. It is the larger, flatter neighbour of the auditorium, designed for exhibitions, trade shows and gatherings rather than seated performances. Over the years it has hosted concerts, conventions, dance events and large parties. Where the auditorium is about rows of seats facing a stage, the Expo Hall is about open floor space. Together, the two buildings let the complex hold almost any kind of event.

As you walk around the outside, notice how the complex fits into its street. Unlike many modern arenas, it does not sit in the middle of a vast car park. It meets the pavement directly, like a city building should. Students cut past it on their way to class. On event nights, the same quiet pavement fills with fans, security barriers, lights and the sound of generators. The building changes character completely between a Tuesday morning and a Saturday night.

Before you move on, take one last look at those domed towers against the sky. A fraternal order dreamed up a desert palace in concrete, and Hollywood turned it into a stage for its biggest nights. Notice the sun on the stucco, the shadows inside the arches, the palm trees along the street. Then, as you walk away toward the campus or the boulevard, glance back once more. From a distance, the towers still look slightly out of place... and that is exactly their charm.