Customer Reviews

Sarasota Modern

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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.

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.

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.

This book is a great source of information, for people looking to buy/rent contemporary, modern homes. It is a great book & it helped me look at these houses at a more in-depth angle than before. Modern means present, up to date. And if your personality is modern, then your home, car, etc. should reflect that aspect of your personality. This book is simply world class.