The Capitol Records Building in Hollywood is an icon of an era, and built when music recording studios and television studios were replacing the movie studios of Hollywood. At 13 stories, the Capitol Records Building conformed to building height restrictions in Los Angeles that limited structures to 13 stories until 1956. The Capitol Records Building stands out architecturally as a symbol of the music industry, and could be described as programmatic architecture in that it reputedly resembles a stack of vinyl records, however it is a local myth that that was the intention of the architect, Welton Becket & Associates. Describing the Capitol Records Building as Googie architecture is also fair, especially with it’s angular antenna-spire that further accentuates the building’s height and appears to be hanging from the sky. If you drive by the building at night, you will see that the antenna-spire has a blinking red light that spells out “Hollywood” in Morse code.

The Capitol Records Building is seen on the LA Highlights Tour .