Readers React: Union Station, an only-in-L.A. icon

By noting Union Station’s “nostalgic architecture,” Christopher Hawthorne misses the triumph and true heritage of the station. (“Union Station’s complexity grows 75 years down the line,” May 3)

The railroad was radical in its support of true American regionalism. Witness the spotlight on authentic Native American culture in the railroad’s Grand Canyon buildings. Witness the beauty of the Southwest regionalism embraced by the station’s designers, who boldly turned their backs on their training in aristocratic European styles.

The roots of the station in the Spanish missions was a hurrah for America and our Golden State: the indoor-outdoor beauty created by Spanish patios and corridors; the high craftsmanship of wrought iron, tile, stenciling and turned wood; and the soaring but simple mission-like spaces.

Hawthorne quotes one architect who regretted that Union Station, built before World War II, didn’t invent the International Style that gained currency after the war, as European professors and their publicists took over American schools. This perpetuates the fiction that all architecture should have strived for steel-and-glass anonymity rather than giving us a civic landmark that displays our shared local roots.

Fran Offenhauser

West Hollywood

The writer is an architect who restored major sections of Union Station’s public spaces and gardens in 2001.