Metal Fabrication

Bobco Metals Co. is one of the oldest metal companies in Los Angeles and has been in existence since the beginning of the 1950s when Bob Blaugrund came back from the Pacific Theater and built a scrap and secondary yard for metals. Bobco Metals evolved from the scrap yard and has become the “supermarket” of metals offering wholesale and retail distribution of metals for industrial and construction requirements. Bobco has an almost five acre stretch of inventory which ensures that customers will have a wide choice of sizes, shapes, and materials. Bobco offers same-day service on flame cutting, precision plasma cutting, rebar bending and cutting, and cold saw-cutting, abrasive saw-cutting and welding and small metal fabrication. Bobco Metal also offers drilling and punching, bending and custom frames and custom and light metal fabrication.

By the beginning of the 1960s Bobco Metal had moved to a one acre plot of land on Alameda Street and built two rectangular metal buildings, one fully covered for the non-ferrous metals and the other open building for the steel. In 1980 Bobco Metal was sold to the Shoonani families and although the metal fabrication company had grown substantially with additions of another warehouse, a small tubing mill, additions of value-added metal fabrication, and hardware and other supplies, the exterior and interior had not been changed since the 1960s. The owners decided to revamp the showroom and offices and they envisioned connected offices with a better business flow and the ability to oversee the retail and hardware store and the yard. They also wanted metal to be used as the primary construction material for the new additions using their own metal fabrication crew.

Changing the size and the appearance of Bobco Metal included the collaboration of Reza Bagherzadeh, an architect the owner had known for years and who had worked closely with Frank Geary – the prominent architect of the era – Reza’s partner, Arshia, and Eric Moss, another architectural master. The four professionals spent many hours discussing the building for the metal fabrication company and also spent time observing the flow of the business. When they returned to Bobco Metals with a model of what the metal fabrication building would eventually be there was no time for second thoughts. What they had to work with was a rectangular metal box, all the metal they wanted and a group of metal fabrication workers who also had to keep to the busy metal retail yard schedule.

The design and construction of the new Bobco Metal building has been awarded the AIA Design Award for Interior Architecture. The vision and aims of the owners have been exceeded and they have a beautiful piece of sculpture in place of a very ordinary metal warehouse. The metal fabrication suppliers know that metal building costs are lower than any other type of construction, especially when using their own metal fabrication workers. The metal fabrication of the warehouse demonstrates how the versatility of metal and a good design can change the appearance of work space for the better.