Synopses & Reviews
Richard Rapaport is a San Francisco-based writer who has written extensively on architecture, government, planning, art, and technology. He is currently completing a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright.
About the Author
A dazzling presentation of the mid-century modern California style, offering a fresh perspective on the work of one of the most influential yet widely unknown figures of American design. The mid-century houses of architect Edward H. Fickett were ubiquitous during their time and are coveted today. They have always demonstrated a deep understanding of the use of indigenous, cost-efficient materials and the integration of interior space with Southern California's Mediterranean climate. These ingredients, plus Fickett's creativity and visionary ideas, added up to perhaps the single most impressive brand of mid-twentieth-century American architecture and design, with a powerful commercial angle: his "affordable yet palatial" homes, as they were advertised, appreciated in value in a manner that could not help but please homeowners and real estate professionals. Fickett's innovative designs were profoundly in sync with Los Angeles's ascendance from second city into one of the world's great metropolises, with innovative postwar tract houses, glamorous garden apartments in Hollywood in the 1950s, and ambitious houses in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Malibu spanning from the end of the 1950s through the 1970s. This book chronicles the development of these houses in detail and through generous black-and-white and full-color photography. The result is a portrait not only of a beloved architect's enduring work, but also of a place and time that continue to capture the imagination.