Forgotten Modern
California Houses 1940-1970
Gibbs Smith
Available: 10/01/07
10 x 10 · 280 pages
9781586858582
CDN $56.00
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Forgotten Modern reveals the work of the innovative architects building in California from the 1930s to the 1970s. With groundbreaking and illuminating examples that will alter the way we think of California architecture, Hess and Weintraub focus on those that exemplify early mid-entury modern, variations on minimalism, and organic architecture.
Though architects, historians, and the public alike have overlooked many of these superb architects from California's past century, this book intends to bring them back to our attention. All the architects included here are important in helping to show the breadth of design, that styles like Organic were more widely represented than we have previously realized, and that the fertile soil of California design fostered a wide spectrum of remarkable ideas-even if not all developed a significant school of followers.
Alan Hess is an architect and historian who has written nine books documenting the architectural history of the West's suburban metropolises (including Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses; The Ranch House; Viva Las Vegas; and The Architecture of John Lautner). He has served as architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986. He studied at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and has been active in the preservation of roadside and post-War architecture, qualifying the nation's oldest McDonald's drive-in, the 1947 Bullock's Pasadena department store, the 1956 Valley Ho Motor Inn in Scottsdale, among others, for the National Register of Historic Places. He received a 1997 Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for his efforts to preserve the McDonald's. Hess has taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SciArc) and UCLA. He lives in Irvine, California.
Alan Weintraub is a widely published architectural photographer whose books include Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses; Lloyd Wright: The Architecture of FLW, Jr.; The Architecture of John Lautner; Oscar Niemeyer: Houses; Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living, as well as an ongoing work on the modern residential architecture of Brazil.
