Houses of the Sundown Sea: The architectural vision of Harry Gesner
Los Angeles natives refashion the world from one of two perspectives: that of the relentless romantic or the cynic. The title of 86-year-old architect Harry Gesner's first monograph establishes him firmly in the former group.
Gesner, who is still working (and surfing) today, represents one of the most glamorous stories of the schismatic strain of Modernism that has quietly studded the state of California with masterpieces by the likes of contemporaries John Lautner and Mickey Muennig.
The monograph's admiring and lightly gossipy text by Lisa Germany depicts a maverick mind and a thoroughly heterodox 60-year oeuvre. Though Abrams' prosaic design of the book, itself, in no way reflects the originality of Gesner's work, it includes drawings and plans and new and archival imagery that elucidate the architect's rich structural, formal and material creativity.
Before he started his own practice at 25, Gesner's architectural education consisted of soldier's-eye views of WWII European architecture, a class audited at Yale where he turned down an invitation from Frank Lloyd Wright to visit Taliesen, and a year-long construction apprenticeship.
His second house declared his heresy: made from energy-efficient, quake-resistant, unplastered adobe brick, the façade rose, at a 30-degree angle to form toothy clerestory windows and a cantilevering, triangular fireplace. His break came in 1959 with one of the west coast's first A-frame houses featuring a black concrete floor inlaid with semiprecious minerals.
Many of Gesner's clients sought him out because he could build on limited budgets and 'unbuildable' sites, and because that impossibility - and the views - shaped what he built. He made houses that hang like a bridge between canyon walls; 'hang 10' over the lip of a cliff; or that could only be reached by funiculars. They are scaled like fish or rigged by Norwegian shipbuilders; he sketched his Wave house in grease pencil from beyond the surf line on a 12-foot balsa board.
Gesner's living and dining rooms were sunken, his kitchens and wet bars were raised, his staircases spiraled. Fireplaces, like his early pools, floor plans, windows and decks were often triangular; only mid-career did he 'discover roundness'.
From the 1970s onward, the patchwork combinations of (laudably upcycled) materials suggests that Gesner lost control of the teeming and eclectic ideas that he packaged with such coherence early on. Nonetheless, Gesner's work begs the question: Why hasn't unorthodox architecture gone forth and multiplied?
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Shonquis Moreno has served as an editor for Frame, Surface and Dwell magazines and, as a long-time freelancer, contributed to publications that include T The New York Times Style Magazine, Kinfolk, and American Craft. Following years living in New York City and Istanbul, she is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
-
Bombed-out bunkers to nuclear disasters: Thomas Demand on the state of the image
On the heels of his Houston MFA retrospective and ahead of its opening in Taipei in January 2025, German artist Thomas Demand reflects on today’s image culture
By Adrian Madlener Published
-
Three new coffee makers for a contemporary brew, from a casual cup to a full-on branded espresso
Three new coffee makers, from AeroPress, Jura and Porsche x La Marzocco, range from the defiantly manual to the bells and whistles of a traditional countertop espresso machine
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Don't miss Luxembourg's retro-futuristic lab pavilion in Venice
As the Venice Biennale enters its last few weeks, catch 'A Comparative Dialogue Act' at the Luxembourg Pavilion
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Tour this Bel Vista house by Albert Frey, restored to its former glory in Palm Springs
An Albert Frey Bel Vista house has been restored and praised for its revival - just in time for the 2025 Palm Springs Modernism Week Preview
By Hadani Ditmars Published
-
A new exhibition marks Chandigarh’s modernist legacy
‘Celebrating the Capitol’, an exhibition of photographic work by architect Noor Dasmesh Singh, opens just in time for the famed modernist Indian city’s anniversary
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Join our tour of London Zoo, its modernist architecture and more
London Zoo is a well-established magnet for younger visitors, but there's plenty for the architecture enthusiast to admire too; our tour explores its modernist treasures for guests of all ages
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
La Grande Motte: touring the 20th-century modernist dream of a French paradise resort
La Grande Motte and its utopian modernist dreams, as seen through the lens of photographers Laurent Kronental and Charly Broyez, who spectacularly captured the 20th-century resort community in the south of France
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
'Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces' captured in new monograph like no book before
'The Atlas of Mid-Century Modern Masterpieces' chronicles hundreds of iconic structures from this golden age of architectural expression
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Discover Tempe à Pailla, a lesser-known Eileen Gray gem nestled in the French Riviera
Tempe à Pailla is a modernist villa in the French Riviera brimming with history, originally designed by architect Eileen Gray and extended by late British painter Graham Sutherland
By Tianna Williams Published
-
'American Modern' surveys the 'total community' modernist project that was Columbus, Indiana
'American Modern', a new publication zooming in on the lesser-known architectural gems of Columbus, Indiana, and their impact, is out this month
By Adrian Madlener Published
-
'Tropicality' explored in Indonesian architect Andra Matin’s first monograph
'Tropicality' is a key theme in a new book on Indonesian architect Andra Matin, whose work blends landscape, architecture and living
By Harriet Thorpe Published