At 765 pages, Architecture of the Sun, Rizzoli’s lavishly illustrated survey of Los Angeles modernism from 1900 to 1970, is as angular as an Eames building but with the warmth of a Charles and Henry Greene California bungalow. Perched on a coffee table, a monolith of receding straight lines and hard cover, the volume peers over an ocean of pacific blue rug and recalls Pierre Koenig’s famous Case Study #21 house. But like the modernism the book examines, there is more here than form; there is content too.  To give proper due to the buildings and the men who built them, author Thomas Hines needs all the pages he can get.

Read More »

The heirs of iconic architect Richard Neutra (you may have heard of him; he’s got a sick typeface) have won their own Battle of Gettysburg after squaring off against historical preservationists who sought to return the battlesite to its original sylvan state. In 1999, the National Park Service declared its intention to demolish the L.A.-based architect’s Cyclorama Center, a 1962 modernist edifice built to house a giant circular painting depicting Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg. Civil War purists consider the 20th-century landmark building an “incursion on the historic site of Pickett’s charge, where Union forces held back a Confederate assault on the third day of the battle.” The presiding judges may not have ended the war, but Neutra’s design has received a stay of execution for now. Read More »

See, graphic designers aren’t just a bunch of font-minded prigs. They’re musical, too! Designers Mark Searcy, Jason Kinney, Forrest Martin, and Tristan Bynum star in this video send up to “Pokerface,” and take it from us, the beards and round glasses only enhance the slinky dance moves that put Lady Gaga to shame. Another fun fact: Neutra is actually pronounced “NOY-tra.” The more you know. 

Read More »

Architectural photographer and tastemaker Julius Shulman made the modern domesticity of Los Angeles into a consumable art form.

Shulman, who died this month at 98, shot glossy, stylized images of California cool, which in turn promoted the architecture of Richard Neutra, John Lautner, and their brethren. His iconic photographs symbolized the polished freedom of LA living, evoked by shots like that of models lounging in Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 22.

Read More »