Review: The Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900–1970, by Thomas S. Hines

Abstract

Thomas S. Hines The Architecture of the Sun: Los Angeles Modernism 1900–1970 New York: Rizzoli, 2010, 756 pp. $95.00, ISBN 9780847833207 Reyner Banham once suggested that historians have the advantage of looking at the world through “the rear-view mirror.” This is a privilege that can be abused—or not. What counters the advantage of hindsight is the hope that the historian will lay out the evidence in such a way that the implicit realities of history become vivid. Thomas S. Hines, in his introduction to Dione Neutra’s book Richard Neutra: Promise and Fulfillment, 1919–1932 (1986), writes, “History at its best is an analytical narrative, where ‘methodology’ pervades but never engulfs the story.” In The Architecture of the Sun , Hines materializes this sentiment in a way that approaches cultural anthropology. Indeed, for the most part Hines manages to convey a sense of frailty, a sense of being “in the moment” that in other hands might come across as inevitability, the smugness of “being right after the events” that Banham’s statement implies. The early section of the book recounts the formative period of modern California architecture that began with the work of Charles and Henry Greene. Most readers will recognize Hines’s story of the influences behind the Greenes’ iconic houses along the Arroyo Seco in Los Angeles County. Hines reminds us of the unique blend of midwestern sentiment, Spanish colonialism, Gustav Stickley, Japonism, and so on, that informed their work. His description of the ways in which these elements were adapted to the context of California, however, is what makes this such a compelling chapter. Hines reminds us how the Greenes’ lifestyle was embodied in their architecture and how their lives established a pattern their clients could use to imagine their own lives in this new landscape. He explains how the Greenes’ early training and career were defined by a rejection of European styles in favor of a search for an American identity. …