Hess, Alan

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Office—San Jose Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Dr., San Jose, CA 95190.

CAREER: Architect and writer. San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, CA, architecture critic.

MEMBER: Society for Commercial Archeology.

WRITINGS:

Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 1986, revised edition published as Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, 2004.

Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA), 1994.

Hyperwest: American Residential Architecture on the Edge, photography by Alan Weintraub, Whitney Library of Design (New York, NY), 1996.

The Architecture of John Lautner, photographs by Alan Weintraub, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1999.

Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living, photographs by Alan Weintraub, Chronicle Books (San Francisco), CA, 2000.

(With Andrew Danish) Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Mid-Century Oasis, Chronicle Books (San Francisco), 2001.

The Ranch House, photography by Noah Sheldon, H. N. Abrams (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Architectural critic Alan Hess has written numerous books about architecture, focusing largely on modern commercial architecture dating back to the 1950s. His first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture was revised in 2004 as Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, with updated research and new photographs. The book focuses on coffee shops, once dismissed as inferior architecture but held in high esteem by Hess and others who study commercial architecture. Reviewing the first edition of the book for Time, Kurt Andersen observed that Hess "zigzags through a hot-rod-and-chili-dog architectural tour that celebrates old McDonald's outlets, car washes and Las Vegas casinos—all the pushy, flimsy '50s buildings that Hess calls 'agitprop for the commercial future.'"

In Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture Hess takes the reader from 1855, when the city was nothing more than part of a train-route through the West, up through 1992 as Las Vegas becomes the entertainment capital of the world. Hess writes about the architects and others who built the city, with each chapter focusing on a few years and detailing the architectural developments of the time. Most of his focus is on the development of the city's spectacular strip of hotels and gambling houses. "As it stands," said TCI critic William Weathersby, Jr., "this book admirably pulls together many of the pieces that haphazardly formed the crazy quilt known as Vegas." An American Heritage contributor called the text "persuasive" and added that "Hess's enthusiasm is infectious."

The Architecture of John Lautner focuses on the career of the architect who built the Chemosphere house in Los Angeles. Lautner was known primarily for his work in the 1950s and 1960s. As described by Lesley Jackson in Building Design, the architect's "work has a larger-than-life filmic quality, much sought after by moviemakers." The book looks at forty of Lautner's houses, such as the domed Elrod House and the Garcia House. As Jackson attested, "The text is accessible, informative, and sensibly structured, and the architectural commentary is illuminating and well-balanced."

Hess follows the evolution of the ranch house in Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living. Examining houses in California, Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas, he details thirty-one structures, from old stone bunkhouses to mansions. Ted Kreiter noted in the Saturday Evening Post that the book is about "how we got to this western dream house … from 'the practical, dusty, unglamorous homsteads' of the authentic old West." "The prose is evocative and accessible, rich with anecdotes about original owners who hung their wagon-wheel chandeliers with old spurs," according to New York Times reviewer Eve Kahn. And Tom Vanderbilt, writing in Interiors, attested that the author "has mined another fascinating vein of America's indigenous mythic architecture."

Hess focuses once again on ranch houses in The Ranch House. With the help of detailed photographs, the author examines the evolution of the ranch house in architectural terms from early Prairie structures on through to haciendas, bungalows, and the eventual tract home developments. Many of the best architect-designed ranch homes are profiled. In a review for Library Journal, Gayle Williamson pointed out, "Many of these homes are being demolished to be replaced by McMansions; hence this book is a valuable appreciation of the style."

In Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Mid-Century Oasis Hess and collaborator Andrew Danish take the reader on a tour of the desert city's modern architectural persona. They describe how Palm Springs developed, beginning with its rise as a resort area for silent movie stars and later entertainers like Frank Sinatra. The subsequent style became known as "Palm Spring Modernism." The authors also recount eighty years of the area's architectural history. David Bryant, writing in the Library Journal, commented that the book "treats Palm springs with care, traveling with finesse between a breezy look at this center of desert design and a useful introduction to some of the city's best houses, offices, and hotels." San Francisco Chronicle contributor Lynette Evans called the book a "narcotic for the lover of California Modernism."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Heritage, April, 1994, review of Viva Las Vegas: After-Hours Architecture, p. 116.

Building Design, February 18, 2000, Lesley Jackson, review of The Architecture of John Lautner, p. 24.

Hospitality Design, August, 2001, Kelly Beamon, Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Mid-Century Oasis, p. 16.

Interiors, July, 2000, Tom Vanderbilt, review of Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living, p. 74; May, 2001, Eve M. Kahn, review of Palm Springs Weekend, p. 182.

Library Journal, May 15, 2000, Gayle Williamson, review of Rancho Deluxe, p. 92; April 15, 2001, David Bryant, review of Palm Springs Weekend, p. 82; January 1, 2005, Gayle Williamson, review of The Ranch House, p. 107.

New York Times, April 13, 2000, Eve Kahn, review of Rancho Deluxe, p. F7.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 2001, Lynette Evans, review of Palm Springs Weekend, p. WB1.

Saturday Evening Post, January, 2001, Ted Kreiter, review of Rancho Deluxe, p. 52.

TCI, October, 1994, William Weathersby, Jr., review of Viva Las Vegas, p.

Time, June 2, 1986, Kurt Andersen, review of Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, p. 71.