Alan Hess


Alan Hess is an American architect, author, lecturer and advocate for twentieth-century architectural preservation.
"Alan Hess a prominent California architecture critic who has written extensively on roadside strips," writes the New York Times. Through 2012, Alan has written and/or co-authored twenty books, published numerous articles on the architecture of Googie, Las Vegas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Oscar Niemeyer, John Lautner, Ranch Houses, Palm Springs, Organic architecture, Mid-century Modern design, and suburbia. He has been the architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986.

Biography

Born in California in 1952, Hess received his BA at Principia College, a master's degree in architecture from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and is a licensed architect. After working with architects William Coburn, and Callister Payne and Bischoff, Hess started his own firm specializing in residential work and historic preservation. His first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture focused on a neglected and popular Modern form. Following books continued to explore overlooked chapters in twentieth-century architecture and urbanism. He is responsible for qualifying several landmark buildings for the National Register of Historic Places, including the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, Stuart Company Plant and Office Building and Bullock's Pasadena in Pasadena, and the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Through his writing, lectures, and educational outreach, Hess has shed light on many forgotten and neglected styles of postwar American architecture - especially in the realm of commercial modern architecture. Googie coffee shops, he said, "brought modern architecture to ordinary people in their everyday lives."
The Los Angeles Conservancy has named him "The preeminent authority on Southern California Modernism."
He won the group's "President's Award" in 2015.

Published works

  • Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture
  • Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture
  • Hyperwest: American Residential Architecture on the Edge
  • The Architecture of John Lautner
  • Rancho Deluxe
  • Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture
  • The Ranch House
  • Organic Architecture: The Other Modernism
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: Houses
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: the Buildings
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: Mid-Century Modern
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: Prairie Houses
  • Oscar Niemeyer Houses
  • Oscar Niemeyer Buildings
  • Forgotten Modern: California Houses 1940-1970
  • Casa Modernista: A History of the Brazil Modern House
  • Julius Shulman: Palm Springs
  • ''Frank Lloyd Wright: Natural Design, Organic Architecture''