The Modern Californian Beach House catalogues the eclectic and always original modernist beach house architecture of Patrick Killen, who for more than thirty years has been Managing Principal of the renowned Studio 9one2 architectural firm.

Killen, along with a handful of other architects, was responsible for introducing serious modern design to the Los Angeles beach communities in the mid-80s, which at the time was a ‘crazy quilt of fantasy structures all built on postage-stamp sized lots wedged together in a dense pattern laid out generations earlier’.

The projects featured in this collection span Killen’s stellar career, from the Shearin House, which established modernism as a viable architectural motif on the western edge of Los Angeles, to 139 Hermosa Avenue, a definitive and welcome statement of modernity amid a sea of ramshackle and derelict structures.