Filmmakers from Coast Modern, a recently released documentary on Modernist coastal house design, journeyed from L.A. to Vancouver to visit houses built in the region’s characteristic outside-in style. Historic and contemporary houses are featured in the film that examines how these homes connect to their settings through the incorporation of abundant light, rooms that blur the lines between inside and out, and minimalist forms that flow into the landscape. Directors Mike Bernard and Gavin Froome describe the making of this movie as being about the merging of built and natural surroundings: “Stepping inside the most inspired dwellings on the West Coast, we feel how the light and space of a classic Modernist home can work in collaboration with the natural environment.”
Bernard and Froome visited countless houses and interviewed dozens of architects, authors, and educators in order to tell the story of how and why this type of design works so well on the Pacific coast. In addition to the visual house tours, the film features conversations with architects Ray Kappe and Dion Neutra, architect and architectural historian Barbara Lamprecht, architectural photographer Julius Shulman, and many others. You can catch upcoming screenings of the film in New York, Cary, N.C., Honolulu, Seattle, and Victoria, British Columbia.
