Coca-Cola Building, Los Angeles

In nineteen thirty-nine, the president of the Coca-Cola Company of Southern California hired architect Robert Derrah to solve a problem: four mismatched brick factory buildings on South Central Avenue that needed to function as one bottling plant. Derrah had recently finished Crossroads of the World, one of the country's first outdoor shopping malls. For Coca-Cola he went in a completely different direction.

He wrapped all four buildings inside a single Streamline Moderne facade designed to look exactly like an ocean liner. The result has a flying bridge, portholes, a promenade deck, and a catwalk running along the hull. It was pure Depression-era theatrics, the idea that even a factory deserved a dose of wonder.

Designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in nineteen seventy-five, the building still stands on South Central Avenue, its nautical prow cutting the same sharp line it has since the day the first Coke bottles rolled off the line.