I often find myself driving through the city in the late afternoon chasing the sun light looking for interesting buildings to photograph. When inspiration strikes I make a mad dash for my camera because I usually don’t have much time before the sun sets and the daylight is complete gone. Driving off into the evening I wonder about the history of these places and most of the time my questions go unanswered since research is not something I do very well. With the help of Long Beach Architecture: The Unexpected Metropolis the task of getting my questions answered has gotten a whole lot easier. This wonderful book by Cara Murillo and Jennifer M. Volland looks back over the last 112 years of Long Beach architecture and outlines 100 of the cities most significant projects. It was with the help of this book that I located Edward Killingsworth’s Cambridge office building just of few blocks from his personal office. According to the book it was celebrated as “top-designed new commercial structure in the world” and it’s lost none of its luster over the last 53 years. I’m not sure if this is how the building originally looked in 1959 but in its present state it’s magnificent. I started this blog to try to inspire myself and jump start my imagination with the things around me and very time I discover gems like this my little effort here feels like a small victory. I hope to have more frequent updates here once I sort out a new lab to handle my processing and scanning but, until then, I will continue to chase the sun searching for inspiration and I hope that you get a kick out of what I see.

Cambridge Office Building 1959 Cambridge Office Building 1959 Cambridge Office Building 1959 Cambridge Office Building 1959 Cambridge Office Building 1959 52850034
About these ads