Julius Shulman: Architecture and its Photography (Hardcover)

by Peter Gossel (Editor), Julius Shulman (Photographer) "This is my celebration of 62 years of the photography of architecture..." (more)
Key Phrases: architectural photography, design statements, view camera, Los Angeles, Richard Neutra, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Our contact with great architecture tends to be indirect, through representations. Few of us have seen the Taj Mahal, yet we all know exactly what it looks like. The useful act of photographing buildings can be an art, particularly when the photographer's presence seems to recede, and a great architectural shot suggests that you're seeing things as they are rather than through someone else's prism.

Julius Shulman has documented buildings in that seemingly transparent way for more than six decades. This meticulous and prolific craftsman was in the right place, California, at the right time, the golden age of West Coast modern residential architecture that spanned the 1930s to the 1960s. Richard Neutra helped him get his start, and he recorded early modernists such as Wright, Schindler, Soriano, Harris, Frey, Ain, Stone, Gropius, Kahn, and Neutra, as well as younger ones such as Goff, Lautner, Ellwood, Koenig, Drake, Killingsworth, Eames, Greene, Legoretta, and even early Frank Gehry. His view camera captured the glamour of hillside steel-and-glass houses cantilevered above the city lights, the serenity of desert vacation homes at dusk, and the clean-lined ingenuity of young architects working on modest budgets.

Shulman's text is a knotty quasi biography, but some good stories lurk there. This is a physically impressive book: its 300 large-format pages contain 500 superbly reproduced color and black-and-white photos that are worth more than the proverbial thousand words each. --John Pastier

Product Description
Both an autobiography and retrospective of American photographer, Julius Shulman, this work presents buildings by a number of famous architects such as Lloyd-Wright, Neutre, Schindler and Lautner in photographs from Shulman's private archive.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: Taschen (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3822872040
• ISBN-13: 978-3822872048
• Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 9.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #805,996 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning design, beautiful photography, entertaining memoir, December 20, 1998

By A Customer

An extraordinary and rare book. Master architectural photographer Julius Shulman showcases the stunning modern designs of Neutra, Koenig, Eames, and others with extraordinary talent and craft. The photographs literally glow. Many of them bowl you over with their beauty. Others have the camp value of '50s advertising: housewives in modern kitchens, families lounging at poolside, couples entertaining in open living spaces. Shulman adds considerable depth by recalling his relationships with the architects, his encounters with the homeowners, his notes on making the photographs. If you admire modern design, appreciate fine photography, and like a good story, this is a book you will cherish.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent graphic material and a sensitive life story ., November 29, 1998

By	Julio Villar Marcos ([e-mail]) (Montevideo, Uruguay) - See all my reviews

By pure chance my son browsed this book in Madrid and found it extremely interesting, so I decided to buy it through Amazon. To my surprise, I found that somehow it belongs to my own life story, because in 1966, in L.A. I met Julius and organized the trip to Uruguay mentioned in pages 211 th 217. In this highly valuable volume, the roots of the modern California architecture and its subsequent development are brightly displayed and wittingly evoked by a man who saw it happen and really played an important role in the process. Shulman's comments on people and places are acute, humorous and, I must say from my own experience, tell the real thing. About the photography. Every architect has a penchant to it, mainly regarding his works, so I strongly advice my colleages through the world to read this book and think how Shulman does it. This simple exercise will undoubtedly help them a lot. In brief, a book to occupy a privileged place in my library, to consult as a permanent reference whenever a new work is finished and needs to be documented.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book, January 9, 2002

By A Customer

If one is ever to purchase a book concerning mid-century modernism, purchase this book. The photography is amazing, and inspiring. The text is informative without being verbose. This is definitely one of the top ten favourites in my collection.
Mr. Shulman is absolutely brilliant.