What building did they film Die Hard?

Fox PlazaAlternative namesGeneral informationTypeArchitectural styleLocationCoordinatesConstruction startedCompletedOwnerHeightRoofTechnical detailsFloor countFloor areaDesign and constructionArchitectStructural engineerMain contractorReferences

20th Century Studios Plaza

Commercial offices

Postmodern

2121 Avenue of the Stars Century City, Los Angeles, California

34°03′19″N 118°24′46″W / 34.055282°N 118.412804°WCoordinates: 34°03′19″N 118°24′46″W / 34.055282°N 118.412804°W

1985

1987

Irvine Company LLC

150 m (490 ft)

34

90,115 m2 (969,990 sq ft)

Johnson, Fain and Pereira Associates

John A. Martin & Associates

Al Cohen Construction

[1][2][3][4]

Fox Plaza (alternatively known as 20th Century Studios Plaza) is a 34-story, 493-foot (150 m) skyscraper in Century City, Los Angeles, California.[5] It is owned by the Orange County–based Irvine Company.[6]

History[edit]

Completed in 1987, the building's architects were Scott Johnson, Bill Fain, and William L. Pereira.[7] Fox Plaza is the last building that William Pereira worked on before his death in 1985 and he did not live to see it open.[citation needed]

Former US President Ronald Reagan had his offices on the 34th floor of the building for several years after leaving public office.[8] The 34th floor is now occupied by 20th Century Studios.[9]

Design[edit]

Outer exterior of the building contains rust-red granite and glass panels.

The Fox plaza building features a unique HVAC system where in the core of the building is located a large vertical air shaft. The air shaft begins below the building, as an outdoor, cooler air intake pushing air to each floor's fan room, and on the roof is located an exhaust for stale air. Such system design utilizes stack effect.[10][11]

Filming location[edit]

In a 2018 tour for Variety, the chief engineer of the building noted how the Fox Plaza has a large number of redundancies in its design, and he speculates that it's because it was intended as a filming location.[12]

The building has been featured in at least four major motion pictures released by Fox. In the film Die Hard it portrayed the fictional Nakatomi Plaza (also known as Nakatomi Tower), a building owned by a fictional Japanese conglomerate.[12] The damaged version of the tower was made via a scale model special effect.

The plaza and a neighbouring building are the main setting for the 1994 comedy Airheads where fictional radio station KPPX is located.[13][14] Fox Plaza was also one of the buildings brought down at the end of Fight Club.[15] The building is also used for the corporate offices of Chimera Gas in the surrealistic road movie Motorama and is also portrayed as the headquarters for Spencer Publications on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.[citation needed] The building plays an important role in the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode "99", in which detective Jake Peralta insists on visiting the building due to its role in Die Hard and causes his squad to miss their return flight to New York City.[16]

The exterior of the building was used in the 1987 Charlie Sheen film No Man's Land, in the 2001 episode of The X-Files, "Essence", and in the 1989 film Lethal Weapon 2.[citation needed]

See also[edit]

• Skyscrapers in film

References[edit]

1. ^ "Fox Plaza". CTBUH Skyscraper Center.
2. ^ "Emporis building ID 116576". Emporis. Archived from the original on February 14, 2016.
3. ^ "Fox Plaza". SkyscraperPage.
4. ^ Fox Plaza at Structurae
5. ^ "Fox Plaza - Office Building for Rent - Los Angeles, CA". Irvine Company. Archived from the original on July 30, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
6. ^ "Irvine Company's Fox Plaza Captures Prestigious Regional Industry Award". Irvine Company. Archived from the original on July 30, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
7. ^ Kaplan, Sam Hall (September 20, 1987). "Fox Plaza: Nice Style, Poor Design". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Archived from the original on October 17, 2015. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
8. ^ Lewis, Andy (26 September 2013). "Inside Ronald Reagan's 'Die Hard' Office in Century City". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
9. ^ "Fox Plaza". Los Angeles Conservancy. Archived from the original on July 29, 2016. Retrieved March 21, 2019.
10. ^ "Large-Building HVAC Systems". Industrial-Electronics.com. Retrieved January 16, 2021. An unusual example of vertical air distribution at the core is shown in Fig. 10. The Fox Plaza, Los Angeles, office building's unique features include both fan rooms on each floor and a large central vertical air shaft. This air shaft begins at the bottom as a fresh air intake to each floor and tapers to become, at the top, an exhaust (heated) air outlet from each floor. Thus, the stack effect is utilized to help supply fresh and exhaust stale air from a large building, with help from small supply fans at each floor.
11. ^ Grondzik, Walter T.; Kwok, Alison G. (2014). Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings (12th ed.). Wiley. pp. 507–509. ISBN 978-1118615904.
12. ^ a b Tapley, Kristopher (July 29, 2018). "'Die Hard' Celebrates 30th Anniversary with Outdoor 'Nakatomi Tower' Screening". Variety. Archived from the original on July 29, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
13. ^ Airheads (1994) - IMDb, retrieved April 8, 2021
14. ^ "Airheads". Retrieved April 8, 2021.
15. ^ "The 'Where Is My Mind' Ending Scene in Fight Club (1999)". YouTube. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
16. ^ Ferguson, LaToya. "In Brooklyn Nine-Nine's "99," teamwork makes the dream work". The A.V. Club. Great Hill Partners. Retrieved August 8, 2020.

External links[edit]

• Fox Plaza Century City at the Irvine Company

Was Die Hard filmed in a real building?

Where did they film Die Hard?

Can you visit the Die Hard building?

Can you visit Fox Plaza?