Next year will be the 90th anniversary Griffith ObservatoryA stately Art Deco landmark that sits atop the southern slope of Hollywood Mountain in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, this time-honored building is more popular than ever, especially after being seen in blockbuster movies and TV series.
Known for its bright Beaux-Arts/Art Deco concrete exterior, distinctive copper-clad dome, and interior marble floors, exotic woods, bronze metalwork, and travertine paneling, this incredible window to space has been visited by more than 85 million people during its long history.
Griffith Jenkins Griffith, a Welsh immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager in the 1860s to seek out opportunities in Mexican silver mines and California real estate, was able to create a magnificent park in his new hometown when the City of Los Angeles generously donated 3,015 acres of land in 1896.
“This place should become a place of rest and relaxation for the public, a place of recreation for the common people,” Griffith said at the ceremony on December 16, 1896. “I consider it my duty to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner and finer city. In this way I hope to do my duty to the community in which I have prospered.”
Shortly before his death in 1919, Griffith bequeathed funds to build a spectacular observatory in Griffith Park, complete with a Greek theater, movie screen, and scientific exhibits, all of which would be open to the public free of charge.
But it wasn’t until 1930 that the Griffith Foundation assembled a team of scientists, including astrophysicist George Ellery Hale, Caltech physicist Edward Carse, and amateur astronomer Russell W. Porter, to make their dream a reality. They, along with the Griffith Foundation and the Los Angeles Park Board, selected architects John C. Austin and Frederick M. Ashley to finalize the plans for the Maine Observatory.
Construction on this ambitious $400,000 project began on June 20, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, and a small army of Caltech consultants, Mount Wilson engineers, and talented sculptors, masons, and construction workers were able to complete the epic undertaking within two years.
This Art Deco temple to the stars welcomed its first visitors on May 14, 1935, and over the decades Griffith Observatory has grown to become one of the most popular public observatories on Earth. Now home to the Samuel Oschin Planetarium and Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater, its extensive exhibits, programs, educational events and busy schedule make it a must-see destination. More than seven million skygazers have peered through its original 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope and Coelostat & Solar Telescope.
But part of Griffith’s mystique has been immortalized through cameo appearances in numerous Hollywood movies and TV shows over the years, most famously in 1955’s “Rebel Without a Cause.” More recently, a futuristic version of the Griffith telescope was seen in this year’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” with protagonist chimpanzee Noah and his friends peering through the corroded eyepiece of an astronomical instrument that has been reclaimed by nature in a post-apocalyptic world.
Another notable display of this impressive structure is in James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s terrifying cyborg encounters a trio of punk rockers (including a young Bill Paxton) outside the Griffith Hotel and demands their clothes.
This spectacular observation deck has more than 170 total film credits, more than most famous actors, beginning with The Phantom Empire (1935), Flash Gordon’s Conquest of Space (1940), Dark City (1950), War of the Giants (1958), The Rocketeer (1991), Bowfinger (1999), La La Land (2016) and many more.
Over the years, it has been used as a setting for science fiction films, including Moon Impact (1954), Tobo the Great (1954), Spacemen (1959), Back to the Future II (1989), Transformers (2007), and Moonfall (2022). On TV, the imposing Griffith Observatory and its grounds have appeared in everything from Mission: Impossible, Melrose Place, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Star Trek: Voyager, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Prime Video’s Fallout.
“Griffith Observatory has been featured in many films, but its ties to the space agency go back a long way,” said Ed Krupp, director of Griffith Observatory. 2022 Interview“This is about the Observatory learning from Hollywood and Hollywood learning about astronomy. This is especially important with regards to our new planetarium show, ‘Signs of Life.’ Because we’re right in the middle of Hollywood, we’ve created our own production studio and hired absolute masters of digital animation techniques.”
A mesmerizing monument to inspiration and wonder, symbolizing mankind’s thirst for knowledge, Griffith Observatory remains an indelible link between the entertainment industry and its dreams, just below its hillside observation deck surrounded by the twinkling lights of the Los Angeles Basin.