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AMAP was instrumental in saving the wings of the Old Del Monte Hotel (currently the Naval Post Graduate School) from demolition in 2006.

Our Mission

To Educate the community about the value of recognizing, preserving, securing, and displaying the Monterey area's historic assets for public benefit.

To Support activities which interpret and share the Monterey area's rich cultural heritage with residents and visitors.

To Encourage residents to be advocates for ideas, programs, and plans which contribute to the understanding of the Monterey area's cultural, ethnic, artistic, and architectural legacy.

 
   
 
Cheap and Thin
Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright

Pacific Grove resident and AMAP board member Dr, Raymond Neutra's book on his family's relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright is available on Amazon. Learn about the development of Neutra's mid-century "California Modern." 

What is the psychological process whereby one person inspires and influences another? In this richly illustrated book, Dr. Raymond Richard Neutra traces the forty-year relationship between his parents and the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The author's father, the pioneer modern architect Richard Neutra, immigrated to the United States in the early 1920's with the dual motivation of working for his idol Frank Lloyd Wright and for exploring the American industrial potential for economical and light weight housing, schools, medical facilities and other "architecture of social concern." He brought his young wife with him to work for Wright in the last part of 1924 and they maintained a correspondence with Wright over the next forty years until the great man's death.

Within nine years of his arrival in the United States Richard Neutra's writings on American building practices and technology and his 1927-29 steel framed "Lovell Health House" and plan for a prefabricated Ring Plan School won him a place in the 1932 MOMA "International Style" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Wright's early cordiality changed to vitriol when he characterized those projects as "Cheap and Thin." Although meant as an insult, the characterization revealed a recognition of the different direction that Richard Neutra's goals had given to the basic strategies that Wright had developed twenty years earlier: Neutra wanted to develop an economic and light way to deploy technology and nature for a happy and healthy life.

The book quotes from the many letters exchanged between Wright and the Neutra's and recounts family memories of visits between them. It then explores the substantial influence of Wright on Neutra and how Neutra adapted, adopted and added strategies and design features to gradually develop what was to become mid-century "California Modern."

Purchase on Amazon


 

ART DECO AND MODERNE IN SALINAS

In 1924, Salinas had the highest per capita income of any city in the United States. During the growing seasons of the Great Depression, the volume of telephone and telegraph transmissions originating in Salinas was greater than that of San Francisco. This activity was reflected in a burst of building construction, many employing the streamlined shapes and organic patterns of Art Deco or Art Moderne. Many examples remain, including the National Register-listed Monterey County Courthouse and the Salinas Californian newspaper building.

Photographs of these and many other structures can be seen in their brochure which includes a street map of downtown identifying their locations. Several other notable structures are also highlighted, including the Victorian house where John Steinbeck was born.

Link to Brochure


The Cooper-Molera Adobe
Allan House
Pt. Lobos Ranch

Allan House

AMAP is a CA registered nonprofit, 501c3, Tax ID #93-1200981. Your contributions are tax deductible.