NorCalMod

About this book

"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.