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ABOUT ALAN HESS
"Alan Hess [is] a prominent California architecture critic who has written extensively on roadside strips," notes the New York Times (3/6/94). As a practicing architect and historian, Hess documents the emerging suburban metropolises of the West. As an architecture critic, he has written a column for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986.
Hess' books document and interpret neglected mid century, popular, suburban, and Modern architecture. They include Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, the newest edition of his ground-breaking 1985 Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, which helped to revive interest in mid-century modern architecture; Viva Las Vegas, an architectural history of the Las Vegas Strip and its relation to the phenomenon of suburban development; The Ranch House and Rancho Deluxe, studies of how the historic utilitarian ranch house evolved into the symbolic Ranch House of American lore, movies and suburbs; and Julius Shulman: Palm Springs and Palm Springs Weekend, histories of Modern architecture in a small but remarkably fertile design community.
Hess has also written fresh perspectives based on new research on some of the masters of Modern architecture which cause us to recalculate our understanding of Modernism. These include The Architecture of John Lautner, the first complete architectural biography of the Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice who successfully broke free of the Master’s gravitational pull; Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940-1970; and Organic Architecture: The Other Modernism. His monographs on Frank Lloyd Wright and Oscar Niemeyer reveal new views for the current age; these include The Houses of Frank Lloyd Wright,Frank Lloyd Wright: Prairie Houses,Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-century Modern, and Frank Lloyd Wright: The Buildings, and Oscar Niemeyer Houses and Oscar Niemeyer Buildings.
Hess is currently researching the architecture of Irvine, California, one of the United States’ largest master-planned communities of the 1960s and 1970s.
While obtaining his Masters of Architecture degree at UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Hess’ interest in Los Angeles and its popular culture lead to his first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, which "renews the scholarly pursuit" of the strip (Time 6/2/86). Based on original sources, it revealed a popular car culture architecture which spread the fruits of Modernism to the mass audience.
As an architect, Hess served as design consultant for the Petersen Automotive Museum of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and was a principal contributor to its interpretive exhibits, including the design of a 1950s coffee shop and its neon sign.
Hess has been active in the preservation of roadside and post war architecture, qualifying for the National Register of Historic Places the nation’s oldest McDonald’s drive-in (Downey, CA 1953), an early suburban department store (Bullock's Pasadena, 1947), the 1956 Hotel Valley Ho Motor Inn in Scottsdale, AZ, and the Stuart Pharmaceutical Factory (Edward Durell Stone, 1958). He received a 1997 Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for his efforts to preserve the McDonald's, and a 1999 President's Award from the California Preservation Foundation.
Hess was a National Arts Journalism Program Fellow at Columbia University's School of Journalism in New York, and received a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to research the work of Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. Hess has taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci?]Arc) and UCLA.
His writings have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Architecture, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Interiors, Progressive Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Stadt Bauwelt, Arts + Architecture, Fine Homebuilding and other journals. He has lectured for the Getty Research Institute, The Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Walker Art Museum, The University of California, Los Angeles, and other groups.
He has also appeared on the CBS Sunday Morning News, CNN, Good Morning America, BBC-TV’s Late Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, California Public Radio’s California Reports, and other broadcast media.