John Entenza born in Calumet, Michigan

Calumet, Michigan

Calumet is a village in Calumet Township, Houghton County, in the U.S. state of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, that was once at the center of the mining industry of the Upper Peninsula. Also known as Red Jacket, the village includes the Calumet Downtown Historic District, listed on the National...

, was one of the pivotal figures in the growth of American modernism

American modernism

American modernism like modernism in general is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation, and is thus in its essence both progressive and optimistic...

: in the fields of environmental, architectural, landscape, and product design; and fine arts, and artisan crafts; in post-war California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Arts + Architecture Magazine

During his editorship, Arts & Architecture Magazine

Arts & Architecture

Arts & Architecture was an American design, architecture, landscape, and arts magazine. It was published and edited by John Entenza from 1940–1962 and David Travers 1962–1967. Arts & Architecture played a significant role both in Los Angeles's cultural history and in the development of American...

championed all that was new in the arts, with special emphasis on emerging modernist architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

.

Case Study homes

Entenza's most lasting contribution was his sponsorship of the Case Study Houses

Case Study Houses

The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Eero Saarinen, to design and...

 project, which featured the works of architects such as Raphael Soriano

Raphael Soriano

Raphael S. Soriano, FAIA, was an influential architect and educator who helped define a period of 20th century architecture that came to be known as Mid-century modern...

, Charles Eames, Craig Ellwood

Craig Ellwood

Craig Ellwood was an influential Los Angeles-based modernist architect whose career spanned the early 1950s through the mid-1970s. Although untrained as an architect, Ellwood fashioned a persona and career through equal parts of a talent for good design, self-promotion and ambition...

, Pierre Koenig

Pierre Koenig

Pierre Koenig was an American architect.Born in San Francisco, he received his B.Arch. in 1952 from the University of Southern California. Koenig apprenticed under Raphael Soriano, among others, and began private practice in 1952. Koenig practiced mainly on the west coast and was most notable for...

, Richard Neutra

Richard Neutra

Richard Joseph Neutra is considered one of modernism's most important architects.- Biography :Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Vienna, Austria Hungary, on April 8, 1892. He was born into both-Jewish wealthy family...

, Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen

Eero Saarinen was a Finnish American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or machine-like rationalism.-Biography:Eero Saarinen shared the same birthday as his father,...

 and William Wurster

William Wurster

William Wilson Wurster was an American architect and architectural teacher at the University of California, Berkeley and at MIT, best known for his residential designs in California. - Biography :...

. Arts & Architecture also ran articles and interviews on artists and designers such as Jackson Pollock

Jackson Pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...

, Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell

Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....

, George Nakashima

George Nakashima

George Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi NakashimaGeorge Katsutoshi Nakashima( was a Japanese-American woodworker, architect, and furniture maker who was one of the leading innovators of 20th century furniture design and a father of the American craft movement...

, George Nelson

George Nelson (designer)

George Nelson was a noted American industrial designer, and one of the founders of American Modernism. While Director of Design for the Herman Miller furniture company both Nelson, and his design studio, George Nelson Associates, Inc., designed much of the 20th century's most iconic modernist...

and many other ground-breakers.