Irving J. Gill: Architect, 1870 - 1936
Architect Irving J. Gill (18701936) is widely considered the first and preeminent architect of the Modernist era. In her groundbreaking work Five California Architects, Esther McCoy asserts that, along with Bernard Maybeck, Charles and Henry Greene, and R. M. Schindler, Gill is one of Californiaˇs most important architects. This book looks at the life and architectural achievements of Gill, with brilliant photography by Marvin Rand and McCoyˇs insightful text from Five California Architects.Additionally, Gill's own writing (excerpted from The Craftsman (1916))describes his architectural and design philosophy.As one of the most influential architects of the late-nineteenth to early twentieth century, Gill is said to have been so far advanced for his time that there was yet no discussion of ≈modernism²‹it simply had not emerged as a movement or a consciousness. Gill followed no one, choosing instead to lead a paradigm shift from crafts to construction to mechanic building, particularly in light of the development and evolution of concrete as material of choice.The stunning combination of Rand's photographic art and  McCoy's writing makes Irving J. Gill an important addition to the library of any serious scholar or fan of Gill, California architecture, Arts and Crafts, modernism, or turn-of-the-century development in building.Marvin Rand gained his photographic education at Los Angeles City College, the U. S. Air Force Photographic School, and Art Center College of Design. He has made a career as an architectural photographer, and his clients have included Charles Eames, Cesar Pelli, Louis Kahn, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Gwathmey/Siegal & Associates, William Pereira & Associates, the Museum of Modern Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art, to name a few. His photographs have been featured in twenty exhibitions‹from Los Angeles to Washington, DC, and New York‹and in twenty-three books, including seminal books on Greene and Greene authored by Randell L. Makinson and Five California Architects by Esther McCoy. His first monograph, Greene and Greene, was published in 2005. Rand lives in Marina del Rey, California, with his wife, Mary Ann Danin.