In certain circles, where maximalism reigns and more is more, mid-20th-century residential design leaves some aesthetes cold. A lushly illustrated new tome surveying dwellings across New Canaan, Connecticut, may help change that reaction and will undoubtedly appeal to modernism's devotees.
Midcentury Houses Today ( Monacelli Press , $65), a new 240-page book by architects Cristina A. Ross and Jeffrey Matz (with photographer Michael Biondo and graphic designer Lorenzo Ottaviani), zeroes in on 16 exemplars of home design from 1950 to 1978, in a town perhaps best known for Philip Johnson’s trailblazing Glass House (1949). But the authors also cite works by Marcel Breuer, Edward Durell Stone, Eliot Noyes, and more for helping develop an architectural style celebrated for its “simplicity, openness, and sensitivity to site and nature.”
Chock-full of plans and crisp full-color photographs, Midcentury Houses Today is a tour de force.
