BOOK:Julius Shulman-Modernism Rediscovered, Taschen Publications

Julius Shulman’s images of midcentury Southern Californian architecture captured not only the distinctive structural, functional, and design elements of a building but also the context of its surroundings and inhabitants in a holistic, evocative sense of lifestyle. Over time, Shulman’s talents would take him around the world, steadily crafting one of the most compelling chronologies of modern architecture. The  book “Modernism Rediscovered” by Taschen Publications features over 400 architectural treasures from the Julius Shulman archives. Each project and photograph was personally selected from over 260,000 photographs Benedikt Taschen, who enjoyed a close relationship with Shulman and his work since first publishing “Julius Shulman: Architecture and Its Photography” (1998). Documenting the reach of modernist aesthetics, the projects span not only the West Coast but also the rest of the United States, as well as Mexico, Israel, and Hong Kong, all captured with Shulman’s characteristic understanding of space and situation, as well as his brilliant and intuitive sense of composition. Each photograph of Julius Shulman Shulman unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building’s surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs. Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Shulman have disappeared or been crudely converted, but the thirst for his pioneering images is stronger than ever before.-Efi Michalarou