As you know, I love mid-century design and architecture. Being born and raised in L.A., it seems that the majority of homes were built in that period between the 50's and 60's (post-war, if you will). So, I grew up in a town filled with homes that express early ideas of what modern/the future should look like. A fascination grew.
Interestingly, most of these mid-century homes looked very similar to one another. As a backlash to anything ornate, the mid-century modern facade was prone to be simple in decoration. As the city grew to create suburbia in this era, street upon street of new modern homes looked like clones of one another.
As a youngster, I began to fix my attention on what I thought to be the most unique aspect of a mid-century modern facade.
I would walk past these homes and focus on the decorative concrete walls AKA "sun-blocker walls". A fascination with these walls still holds today. It seems that there are an infinite array of decorative concrete blocks from this era. To me, the sun-blocker walls are art... unique textiles worth highlighting.
With all that said, I'm thinking about finally putting together a book of my favorite "sun-blocker walls" in Los Angeles. The idea is to create an alternative to all the coffee table books about mid-century modern homes. This book will consist of only close-up pics of the sun-blocker walls, and it would highlight the textile design more than the actual home. The idea is also to get published, so what do you guys think? Is this a book that would interest you? Would you pick it up if you saw it on a coffee table?
-S
SYI- I found the pics for this blog entry online... there are much more amazing sun-blocker walls out there in the city. I need to take some snapshots and post them soon. Also, how does one get published?
