A CoLA-Verse Discussion Series: "Overlooked and Under-loved: Picturing Late Modern Architecture"

Presented by the College of Liberal Arts

Overlooked and Under-loved: Picturing Late Modern Architecture

Moderated by Dr. Emily Bills, author of Wayne Thom: Photographing the Late Modern (The Monacelli Press, 2020)

On Thursday, April 22nd, 5:15 pm – 6:15 pm.

A key primer to late-twentieth-century Modernism, this monograph devoted to Wayne Thom chronicles his photographic practice and the architectural and urban environment in which he worked. An innovative chronicler of the booming West Coast urbanism of the 1960s and 70s, Thom’s photographs of key projects by path-breaking architecture firms such as William Pereira & Associates, Edward Durell Stone, SOM, Gio Ponti, John Portman, I. M. Pei, and A. Quincy Jones helped establish the idea of cool architectural glamour of the era. Yet, these are buildings we love to hate for their “corporatist” look—office building chic and utilitarian aesthetics.

WAYNE THOM was born in Shanghai in 1933. His work, which spans five decades, documents modern architecture throughout the Western United States and the Pacific Rim, with the bulk of his work documenting the greater Los Angeles area. Thom is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Modern Masters Award of the Los Angeles Conservancy (2015), and life membership in the Professional Photographers of America. He has worked with significant modern architects of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries including A. Quincy Jones, William Pereira, Arthur Erickson, John Portman, Gio Ponti, SOM, and his brother, Bing Thom.

EMILY BILLS is an author, curator, and staff at Woodbury University. Dr. Bills has contributed essays to books on architectural and urban history, including Michigan Modern: Design That Shaped America and Visual Merchandising: The Image of Selling. Her co-authored book California Captured, Mid-Century Modern Architecture (Phaidon, 2018) won a Glenn Goldman Art, Architecture & Photography Award by the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association for its perspective on the life and work of architectural photographer Marvin Rand. Her next book, Linking Up Los Angeles: How the Telephone Built a City, is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press.

BACKGROUND MATERIALS TO PREPARE FOR THE DISCUSSION:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

• Should we like how a building looks to support its preservation?
• What is the job of the architectural photographer?
• Are buildings that might symbolize problematic issues or urban moments worth preserving?
• What role might architectural photography play in historic preservation?