Julius Shulman’s Los Angeles Love Story

From neon-lit “La-La Land” to dark, gritty L.A. Confidential and L.A. Noire, the city of angels—Los Angeles—has occupied a place in the public’s imagination in many forms. In Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, we see through the eyes of a true lover of the city. “My father Julius Shulman grew up with Los Angeles,” Judy McKee, Shulman’s daughter, suggests in her tender foreword. In a stunning array of black and white as well as color photographs, Julius Shulman Los Angeles tells a love story between a talented photographer and his home city, the “girl next door” that became the love of his life and to whom he devoted his talents. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Julius Shulman’s Los Angeles Love Story."

[Image: © Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods, Rizzoli New York, 2011. Richard Neutra’s Kuhn House, 1936; Shulman’s first photograph of modern architecture.]

[Many thanks to Rizzoli for providing me with the image above from and a review copy of Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis by Sam Lubell and Douglas Woods.]

California Dreaming: Modern Architecture in Los Angeles

Los Angeles often feels like another planet to non-natives, from the confluence of cultures to the often unearthly architecture. In Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970, Thomas S. Hines serves as our ambassador to this brave new world on the left coast that served as the perfect environment for international architectural styles to find room to grow in the United States. Hines, Professor Emeritus of History and Architecture at UCLA, where he teaches cultural, urban, and architectural history, sees L.A. as a prime “consumer and translator of modernist architectures developed elsewhere,” and, thus, “presents a seductive case study of the effect upon modernism of regional patterns and imperatives—and vice versa.” California dreaming in steel, glass, and stone thus continues the dreams of European modernists while simultaneously engaging the local flavors of the City of Angels. Hines’ voyage of discovery through the manmade landscape of Los Angeles is a strange, and stirring, trip. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "California Dreaming."

[Many thanks to Rizzoli to providing me with a review copy of Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900-1970 by Thomas S. Hines.]