Jock Peters, Architecture and Design: The Varieties of Modernism

Christopher Long

LIMITED AVAILABILITY

The first comprehensive study of the German-born architect and designer Jock Peters (1889–1934), whose elegantly modern interiors for Bullock’s Wilshire in Los Angeles and the Hollander department store in New York City brought him national fame. The New York City–based curator of design Donald Albrecht described the book as “A masterful blend of émigré biography and architecture and design history, proving that the twentieth century fostered more than one modernism.”

Press and Awards


November 2021
Hardcover
304 pages
261 illustrations (114 in color)
8.5 x 10.5 inches

ISBN: 978-1735600116

$65.00

Description

An important document that should be included in any library of design and architecture.
–Daniella Ohad

This visually rich and fascinating study is an intimate portrait of an architect and designer who, until, now has been a largely forgotten figure of early Los Angeles modernism. Historian and author Christopher Long traces his career, from Peters’s early days while still in Germany, during World War I. Among Peters’s early works in Germany are designs for the Levantehaus and Karstadt department stores, an innovative design dated 1916 for a magnificent glass pavilion, and his work for German architect Peter Behrens after the war. But the architect’s most accomplished and compelling work came after 1922 when he settled in Southern California. Most notable are the strikingly lavish and elegant commercial interiors Peters designed for the iconic Bullock’s Wilshire store in Los Angeles and the tragically forgotten Hollander department store in New York City.

The breathtaking scope of his short-lived career includes modern film sets for Famous Players-Lasky, later Paramount Pictures, while working under the legendary art director Hans Dreier; a dynamic sales office for the trendsetting Maddux Air Lines, which later became TWA; and modern residences, including the still extant homes he built for cinematographer Alfred Gilks, who would later win an Academy Award for An American in Paris, and art gallerist and developer William Lingenbrink for whom Peters also designed stores and a vibrantly colorful sidewalk for the Silver Strand beach development north of Los Angeles. Lingenbrink, a major supporter of the burgeoning modernism, also commissioned Jock Peters, alongside Schindler, to design houses for Park Moderne, the legendary avant-garde modernist retreat for artists in Calabasas.

This important study on early modernism includes never before published material from the architect’s personal archive, still in family hands. These remarkable and inspiring images—more than 250 historic photographs, etchings, watercolors, and drawings—alongside Long’s insightful narrative, demonstrate how Peters, despite his early death, managed to leave his mark on the modernist landscape in Southern California at a time when the new style was just emerging.

About the Author
Christopher Long is Martin S. Kermacy Centennial Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught in Vienna and Prague and has written or contributed to more than fifty publications on modern architectural history, including groundbreaking studies on Adolf Loos, Josef Frank, Paul T. Frankl, and Kem Weber. Among the numerous exhibitions he has curated or collaborated on are: Living in a Modern Way: California Design 1930–1965 at the Los Angeles Museum of Art (2011) and The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin (2019).

Jock Peters, Architecture and Design: The Varieties of Modernism
$65.00