California Crazy and Beyond

Roadside Vernacular Architecture By Jim Heimann

7.5 x 10 in; 180 pp ; 386 color and b/w
Paperback
Published in April, 2001
ISBN 0811830187
ISBN13 9780811830188

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$19.95

Reviews
One of the most arresting and telling images in "California Crazy & Beyond: Roadside Vernacular Architecture" by Jim Heimann appears on the title page of the book. A grinning carpenter stands in front of a half-finished restaurant under construction on Whittier Boulevard on a sunny day in 1932, and behind him we can see the 2-by-4s and tar paper and chicken-wire that will give the structure its fanciful shape-the restaurant is called teh Chili Bowl, and that's exactly what it will look like. "California Crazy & Beyond" is a celebration of architecture that is designed and built to look like something else-ships and planes, trolleys and zeppelins, flowerpots and fireplaces, oranges and lemons, toads and toadstools. With more than 350 evocative examples of what Heimann calls the "anything-goes attitude" in California architecture, the book can be enjoyed as a charming exercise in whimsy and nostalgia. At the same time, however, it offers some intriguing insights into how and why Southern California came to be "the crazy-building capital of the world." -Los Angeles Times

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