NorCalMod
Subtitle: icons of northern California modernist architecture
By: by Pierluigi Serraino.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Published: 2006
Place of publication: San Francisco
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9780811843539
Subjects: International style (Architecture) -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area; Architecture -- California -- San Francisco Bay Area -- 20th century
Description: "NorCalMod is a journey of rediscovery of the proud tradition of Modernist architecture in Northern California. Numerous significant Modern buildings remain hidden in plain view in Northern California, often obscured in the public consciousness by the perception that Modernism never made it north of the San Fernando Valley. The story of these buildings is told here for the first time, in all its richness and complexity." "But NorCalMod is far more than simply an untold history of architectural Modernism in the Bay Area and its environs. It details both sides of a heated debate that raged around the very idea of Modern buildings in a region that already had an identifiable and preexisting stylistic tradition. This debate drew in some of the greats of twentieth-century architecture and criticism: Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis Mumford, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and many more. The way the debate tipped in the end-privileging the "Bay Region Style" over a struggling young Modernism-goes a great way toward explaining why the hundreds of important Modernist projects around the Bay Area and Northern California, many still standing, remain virtually unknown." "Hundreds of amazing period photographs reconstruct the legacy of the Modern movement in the northern half of the state, while Pierluigi Serraino's text elucidates the complex issues that have framed the narrative (or lack of it) on this subject for the past sixty years, making this a landmark addition to the literature both of Modernism and of California architecture. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Notes on northern California modernism; title: The euphoria of freedom; title: Regionalism versus the international style: the origins of a split; title: Looking sharp: a glimpse into architectural photography; title: Voices of California modernism; title: The free fall of the affluent society: on the crisis of modernism in the city; title: Blind spots: on remembering in the age of indexing; title: Modernity in the closet.