ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE
September 1954
Berkeley Architect Donald Olsen’s copy
John Entenza [Editor]: ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE. Los Angeles: John D. Entenza, Volume 71, No. 9, September 1954. Slim folio. Saddle-stitched printed wrappers. 38 pp. Illustrated articles and advertisments.Wrappers lightly worn, with faint ink notation to front panel [see below]. Cover by Marvin Rand. A very good copy.
Subscriber mailing label for Mr. Donald Olsen / 71 Norwood Ave. \ Berkeley 7, Calif attached to rear panel. Donald Olsen (American, 1919 - 2015) studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard and established an architecture practice in Berkeley in 1953. In 1954, he designed Olsen House (known as Donald and Helen Olsen House) in the International Style in Berkeley, California. Olsen was a member of the UC Berkeley School of Architecture faculty, which became the Department of Architecture when the College of Environmental Design was founded in 1959. Along with Vernon DeMars and Joseph Esherick, he designed Wurster Hall, which opened in 1964. The purist houses of Donald Olsen stand out as remarkably durable achievements among the post-war architectural heritage of the San Francisco Bay Area.
9.75 x 12.75 vintage magazine with 38 pages of editorial content and advertisements from leading purveyors of West Coast mid-century modernism, circa 1954. Staff photography by Julius Shulman. In terms of decor, there is none of that Chippendale jive here-- every residential interior is decked out in full midcentury glory.
- Hillside House: Richard Neutra
- House: Paul Rudolph
- House: Thornton M. Abell
- Patio House: Pierre Koenig
- The New Case Study House: Craig Ellwood
- House: Theodore Luderowski
- Building: Eugene D. Sternberg
- Leonardo Cremonini by Eugene Berman
- Design And Technique—Japan
- Mosaics—Ada Korsakaite
- Silver and Glass—Tapio Wirrkala
- The Contemporary Object: Stuart McDougall, Raymond Loewy, Isamu Noguchi, Gio Ponti, and other.
- Music
- Notes In Passing
- J. O. B. Opportunity Bulletin
- Currently Available Product Literature And Information
- And more.
Editorial Associates for Arts and Architecture included Charles Eames and Benjamin Baldwin. Julius Shulman was the staff photographer. The Editorial Advisory Board included William Wilson Wurster, Richard Neutra, Eero Saarinen, Sumner Spaulding, Gregory Ain, Ray Eames, Garrett Eckbo, Herbert Matter and others luminaries of the midcentury modern movement.
In 1938, John Entenza joined California Arts and Architecture magazine as editor. By 1943, Entenza and his art director Alvin Lustig had completely overhauled the magazine and renamed it Arts and Architecture. Arts and Architecture championed all that was new in the arts, with special emphasis on emerging modernist architecture in Southern California.
One of the pivotal figures in the growth of modernism in California, Entenza's most lasting contribution was his sponsorship of the Case Study Houses project, which featured the works of architects Thornton Abell, Conrad Buff, Calvin Straub, Donald Hensman, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, J. R. Davidson, A. Quincy Jones, frederick Emmons, Don Knorr, Edward killinsworth, Jules Brady, Waugh Smith, pierre Koenig, Kemper Nomland, Kemper Nomland Jr., Richard neutra, Ralph Rapson, Raphale Soriano, Whitney Smith, Sumner Sapulding, John Rex, Rodney Walker, William Wilson Wurster, Theordore Bernardi and Craig Ellwood. Arts and Architecture also ran articles and interviews on artists and designers such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, George Nakashima, George Nelson and many other ground-breakers.