While Oscar-winning actor Diane Keaton was best known for roles in Woody Allen movies and the Godfather saga, she was also a vigorous defender of historic buildings.
Keaton had served on the board of the Los Angeles Conservancy and as a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Northridge earthquake in 1994 and heavy rains a decade later caused significant damage. The National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the house on its 2005 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.
Keaton also fought to preserve the Century Plaza Hotel, which was built in the 1960s and also placed on the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list in 2009.
Efforts to save the 1920-era Ambassador Hotel, however, weren’t successful. An early symbol of the city’s development and the site of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, the hotel was demolished in 2005 to make way for the construction of a school.
“I’ll never understand why architecture is considered a second cousin to painting and film,” she said. “We’ve never been married to our romance with architecture. A building, unlike a canvas or a DVD, is a massive work of art with many diverse uses. We watch movies in buildings. We look at paintings on their walls. We pray in cathedrals. We live inside places we call homes. Home gives us faith in the belief of a well-lived life. When we tear down a building, we are wiping out lessons for the future. If we think of it that way, we will begin to understand the emotional impact of wasting the energy and resources used to build it in the first place.”
