May Company Building (Wilshire, Los Angeles)
Completed in 1939, the Saban Building, formerly the May Company Building, on the Miracle Mile in the Wilshire district, Los Angeles, is a celebrated example of Streamline Moderne architecture. The building's architect Albert C. Martin, Sr., also designed the Million Dollar Theater and Los Angeles City Hall. The May Company Building is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. The building was operated as a May Company department store from 1939 until 1992, when May merged with J. W. Robinson's to form Robinsons-May.
The Los Angeles Conservancy calls it "the grandest example of Streamline Moderne remaining in Los Angeles". It is especially noted for its gold-tiled cylindrical section that faces the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue, of which it occupies the northeast corner.
In 1994 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art acquired the building and, as "LACMA West", used it as exhibition space for the museum.
The building will be repurposed and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is set to open in the building in 2020.
In 2017, the building was official renamed the Saban Building in honor of Haim Saban and his wife. Plagued by cost overruns, construction was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Academy officials still optimistically expects to have building opened by December 2020 as originally announced at the 92nd Academy Awards presentation in February 2020.
