California Moderne and the Mid-Century Dream

The mid-century houses of architect Edward H. Fickett are coveted today, were ubiquitous during their time, and have always demonstrated a presciently deep understanding of the use of indigenous, cost-efficient materials and the integration of interior space with Southern California's Mediterranean climate. These ingredients, plus his creativity and visionary ideas, added up to perhaps the single most impressive brand of mid-twentieth-century American architecture and design. Fickett was also recognized because he and his designs were so profoundly in sync with Los Angeles's ascendance from second city into one of the world's great metropolises with innovative postwar tract houses, glamorous garden apartments in Hollywood in the 1950s, and ambitious houses in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Malibu spanning from the end of the 1950s through the 1970s.