Synopses & Reviews
Here are thirty of the most exciting new houses and five audacious projects from a region that has always been a crucible for experimentation in residential design. They express the needs and desires of fearless individuals who decided to please themselves, flout conventional wisdom, and collaborate with talented architects. They respond to their varied sites from the canyons of Santa Barbara south to the mountains of San Diego County; to slivers of the oceanfront, precipitous slopes, leafy suburban estates, and bustling commercial streets. Modest or grand, expansive or tightly-compressed, angular or sensuously curved, they offer a cross-section of the best of contemporary design, and are linked only by their openness to a benign climate.
Here are the successors to Neutra and Schindler, Lautner and Gehry: architects who break out of the box to create houses that express their vision for clients and, sometimes, themselves. From serene white volumes to shifting geometries and bold expressions of structure; from houses that engage the landscape or beach to those that turn confined lots to advantage, these are models of creative design. They are sensitive to the environment, the craving for shelter and escape, and there's no wasted space, no striving to impress. They speak to the present, not to some fantasy of a past that never was. Soaring volumes flooded with light and open to nature offer an appealing alternative to claustrophobic historicism and stamped-out ornament. Brave New Houses should appeal to everyone who has thought of designing or owning a house that is one-of-a-kind, or has dreamed about making a fresh start in life.
Synopsis
Los Angeles and Southern California have always been a crucible for the experimental in residential design. Here then are the successors to Neutra and Schindler, Lautner and Gehry-architects who break out of the box to create houses that respond to the benign climate and varied topography of Southern California and express the needs and dreams of their clients. From serene white forms to bold expressions of structure, from houses that engage the landscape or ocean to those that turn confined lots to advantage, these are models of creative design. Behind every creative design is a successful architect-client relationship, and Webb gives a rare glimpse of the collaborative process of "designing a house." With some of the best houses built in the past decade,
Brave New Houses should appeal to everyone who has thought of designing or owning a house that is one-of-a-kind.
About the Author
Michael Webb is a writer and editor who has authored twenty-one books on architecture and design, including Universe's
Modernism Reborn and monographs on George Nelson and Ingo Maurer. He lives in Los Angeles.