October 5, 2009


Visual Acoustics

visualaccoustics

VISUAL ACOUSTICS celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world’s greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream.

posted by Amy Mabli in architecture, movies, photography 

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One Response to “Visual Acoustics”

  1. Sheila Ryan on October 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Shulman has been hovering in the back of my mind since Phil posted an announcement of his death a while back. I’ll probably never get around to thinking this through, so I’ll just toss out an off-hand thought.

    The photographs look so damn fabulous, but I’m telling you, you look at many of these mid-century modern dwellings out in the harsh light of desert locales, and they can look downright ticky-tacky.

    And that wall-to-wall glass! It doesn’t bother me so much in terms of energy efficiency or purported lack thereof; it’s the aesthetic that feels wrong. I can still remember a panicky weeping fit that seized me during a stay in a desert hotel in the ‘California Modern’ vein constructed circa 1957. Though I love the low desert country of southern California, the light and the view in that hotel room disturbed me profoundly.

    I’ve no idea what the point of these ramblings might be. Perhaps I’m just thinking that Shulman was a superb photographer of and propagandist for an aesthetic that to my mind has never worked well in the desert.

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