Copyrighting Architecture: How Much Is Actually Protected?

Robert Darwell and Christine Steiner have done a great job of synthesizing copyright law as it applies to architecture. Darwell and Steiner do so by referencing the recent Getty Museum exhibition, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A.

The very architecture that has put Los Angeles on the map is less likely to receive protection under current US law than any other architectural form… Strict application of the US’s requirement that copyright protection extend only to nonfunctional building design will deny protection to successfully modern buildings.