Picture an interior so extraordinary it ranks among America's finest. The Bradbury Building was commissioned in 1892 by mining millionaire Lewis Bradbury, who reportedly hired draftsman George Wyman after Wyman received a message via a Ouija board from his dead brother urging him to take the job. The exterior, a modest five-story Romanesque facade, gives nothing away.
Step through the doors and the building opens into a soaring atrium of ornate ironwork, glazed yellow brick, Mexican tiles, and a skylight that floods the interior with Southern California light. The open-cage elevators, wrought-iron railings, and glazed corridors look like something from a Victorian dream of the future. The architect was inspired by Edward Bellamy's utopian novel Looking Backward, which described a perfect commercial building of 2000.
The Bradbury has appeared in more films than almost any other building in the city — most famously as the crumbling apartment building in the final scenes of Blade Runner. The public lobby is open during business hours; go in and ride the elevator.