Sarasota Modern [Hardcover]

Andrew Weaving (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 7, 2006

Sarasota in the 1950s was a small community graced with an alluring natural beauty. What set it apart from so many Florida beachfront towns was the concentration of artists, writers, and architects who gathered there—including author MacKinley Kantor and architects Paul Rudolf and Ralph Twitchell—a unique confluence of talented and daring architects coupled with a hip crowd willing to take risks. Sarasota was a place in which innovation and experimentation were the order of the day, a place where an architect might run into the local watering hole to shout: "I just invented the sliding glass door." Such was the confluence of art and architecture that laid the groundwork for the Sarasota School of Architecture, so named after the fact by architect Gene Leedy at an American Institute of Architecture (AIA) conference in the 1980s to refer to the unique architecture of this region, an architecture that is wonderfully responsive to Sarasota's sub-tropical environment and which has achieved international importance for its beauty, intelligence, and style. Today, Sarasota's treasures are being rediscovered by lovers of innovative architecture, who are buying and restoring these prized homes; but also, unfortunately, by developers, who are recklessly knocking them down. Sarasota Modern, the first book of its kind to focus exclusively on this vibrant community, offers the reader an intimate look into the stunning houses as they are lived in today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a handsome and thoughtful coffee-table book..." -- 10/15/06 DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL

"Weaving assembles the best examples of modern design..." -- 11/26/06 ORLANDO SENTINEL

"Weaving offers a fresh approach...extensively researched through interviews with the architects and the homeowners, it's full of the personal stories that grab and keep the reader's attention." -- 11/18/06 SARASOTA HERALD TRIBUNE

"Weaving takes the reader on a virtual tour of some of Sarasota School's finest houses." -- Dec06 HOME MIAMI

"handsomely illustrated, luicdly written" -- 12/17/06 CHICAGO TRIBUNE

About the Author

Andrew Weaving is an expert on 20th-century architecture, furniture, and design. He was co-author of Living with Mid-Century Style, among others, and owns a 1956 Sarasota School house in Winter Haven designed by Gene Leedy. He lives in London.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (November 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847828727
• ISBN-13: 978-0847828722
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 0.9 x 10.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #281,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Modern Sarasota, January 18, 2007

By 

David M. Haas (Sarasota, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sarasota Modern (Hardcover)

The photographs in this publication are surperb in every way and they really show off the many beautiful homes in the publication. It is essentially a ""coffee table book" as the printed information is very general in nature and not informative when it comes to understanding the intellectual underpinings of the whole development of the Sarasota School of Architecture. I think the book would have been much more complete with a discussion of the philosophy behind the development of these homes and their place in both the history of modern architecture and the history of achitecture in the western world.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SARASOTA MODERN is best book on subject so far, January 19, 2007

By 

Martie Lieberman "www.modernsarasota.com" (Sarasota, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sarasota Modern (Hardcover)

Sarasota Modern is the best book published about the Sarasota School of Architecture to this date, because it shows the houses as they are today, and discusses the architect, the client and how each project has evolved over time. Andrew Weaving owns, restores and writes about modern architecture in Florida and understands the work, the architects and their original intent, plus allows us to peek inside to see how owners choose to enjoy these houses today. Architects highlighted are from the past to the present, including Paul Rudolph, Edward "Tim" Seibert/Seibert Architects, Gene Leedy, Carl Abbott, Victor Lundy, Jack West, Ralph Twitchell, Toshiko Mori and many others. Buy this book if you want to learn why this body of work is considered Sarasota's most important art form, and a growing source of tourism for Sarasota Florida.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of eye candy but ..., January 27, 2008

By 

S. Schuh - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sarasota Modern (Hardcover)

To it's credit, this book whet my appetite to learn more about modernist residential architecture in Sarasota. And it has many pretty pictures of renovated homes with many mid-century props.

What it lacks, however, is an editor - someone who would have insisted on comprehensible prose, who would have deleted the redundancies, clichés, and trivial gossip, and who would have focused the text on the architecture and its significance. Instead we have a coffee-table-sized real estate brochure - loads of eye candy but so very little substance.