Educational Media Reviews Online

I highly recommend the film Coast Modern to anyone interested in architecture and the modernist movement. Simply put, it is a visual feast. The cinematography is exquisite, the examples of buildings thoughtfully chosen and explained. Both exteriors and interiors are explored. Attention to detail is a strength in this film. The camera pans to details of living rooms and offices that distinguish one space from another, and these shots personalize what could otherwise be stark environments. Additionally, the people selected to discuss modernism are knowledgeable and well-spoken. The film features architects and scholars, as well as inhabitants of these dwellings, including James Steele, Barbara Lamprecht, Ray Kappe, Hernik Bull, Pierluigi Serraino, Michael Folonis, Dion Neutra, Douglas Coupland, John Cava, Barbara Bestor and Julius Shulman.

My praise for Coast Modern comes with one caveat—that it doesn’t spend much time developing the idea of west coast modernism, or differentiating it from modernism in general. Certainly all of the buildings discussed are situated on the west coast of Canada and the United States, but that is the extent of the west coast-ness of the buildings. There is one description of west coast modernism by the architect Cathy Johnson as being more approachable, and rougher around the edges. She likens it to sand tracked in from the beach. It would have been useful to have more discussion of how nature and the buildings’ surroundings impact the structures.