California Dreaming - Paperback

by Neil Spiller (Editor)

Back Jacket

California has historically provided a fertile breeding ground for radical modes of architectural thinking, practice and building, which from the 1920s onwards was sparked by the presence of eminent émigré architects. It was also central to the birth of 'cool' mid-century Modernism - all in parallel with the intense concentration of design and experimentation in the film, aerospace and tech industries. This AD issue explores the influential formal tropes generated in the nexus between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, as well as the thriving theoretical preoccupations that have brought California's architects global attention. Between Hollywood and the Silicon Valley, this unique context has nurtured and become the platform for those who not only build buildings around the world, but have also founded and directed schools and educated emergent generations of architects.

Contributors: Frances Anderton, Jasmine Benyamin, Blaine Brownell, Courtney Coffman, Heather Flood and Aaron Gensler, David Freeland and Brennan Buck, Craig Hodgetts, Max Kuo, Eva Menuhin, Nicole Meyer, Jill Stoner, and Grace Mitchell Tada.

Featured architects: Atelier Manferdini, Ball-Nogues Studio, Faulders Studio, FreelandBuck, Hood Design Studio, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Preliminary Research Office, Stereobot, and Synthesis Design + Architecture.

Author Biography

Neil Spiller is editor of AD, previously he was Hawksmoor Chair of Architecture and Landscape and deputy pro vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich, London. Prior to this, Spiller was dean of the School of Architecture, Design, and Construction and professor of architecture and digital theory, and vice-dean and graduate director of design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College, London.