The leading style of the century

The book is a remarkable visual record of over four hundred houses that accurately convey the feel and scope of mid-century modern around the globe. Predictably the US has the most examples, one hundred and fifty (Canada has ten) and the mid-century style could be said to have originated there, especially in California where creative architects, including several Europeans, designed houses that took advantage of the pleasant climate and featured open-plan living like the well-known Case Study Houses, several are included. The next largest collection is in the UK with forty-one houses.

The book divides the world into nine regions with Europe in two sections and 151 homes, Africa and the Middle East have fourteen and the Far East thirteen, Central and South America fifty-one. Australia and New Zealand twenty. Each house has one exterior photo and sometimes the addition of one or more interiors. The captions include the structure's name, architect, location and date followed by the author's very comprehensive background detail about the property and designer. The back pages have a Timeline, Glossary, Bibliography and Index. 

There are nine or more circular houses, a style favored by John Lautner, several architects broke away from the format and designed roofs that curved over a property or looked like wings. A couple of oddities are included, Finnish designer Matti Suuronen and his 1968 Futuro House looking remarkably like a science fiction space ship and Charles Deaton's 1965 Sculptured House near Denver, Colorado. I thought the Timeline (1945 to 1974) over twenty pages at the back of the book, was quite fascinating. Each page has twenty reasonably sized thumbnails and it's possible to see and compare how architects created individual homes with the mid-century characteristics of a horizontal look and large windows. 

This is a lavishly produced book with five hundred large photos and printed on a good matt art paper. It could well become the standard reference for this important and influential house style.