Theme Building

It is a talisman of departure and arrival, an unsentimental sentry. With its swooping skeletal profile, it promises a sleek, easy technofuture--which, we regret to inform you, has been indefinitely delayed. See your gate agent for details.

It is officially known as the Theme Building, a title ingeniously and appropriately empty of meaning. It neither revolves nor holds the LAX control tower, as millions believe. (“Even after people have been in it, they think it revolves,” marvels an airport spokeswoman.) It holds only an observation deck and a restaurant, both closed for renovations since the summer of 1995. (The restaurant reopened last month.) Since the building’s construction 35 years ago at a cost of $2.2 million, it has been utterly purposeless to aviation operations. Welcome to L.A., it proclaims. You have been misled.

It was considered an architectural innovation in 1961 for its rare arrangement of steel parabolic arches, a scheme devised by Charles Luckman, Welton Becket, Paul R. Williams and sundry collaborating architects and engineers. A year after it rose, “The Jetsons” aired for the first time.

An ever-evolving exterior lighting system will be unveiled this month so that our white spider can turn chameleon, its skin cast in hues of purple and blue and green, depending on the hour. I propose a red hourglass on its underbelly, to keep travelers wary.

And I have two questions: If it goes magenta at sunset, will it disappear altogether? And if it does, where will we get our establishing shot?