the unreal america.
so, last week i attended AIGA’s studio tour for chronicle books here in san francisco. their new office building, which they’ve been in for several months now, was incredible. i met many high level creatives that night, including one brett macfadden, senior designer. brett has worked with academy of art MFA students as a directed study advisor before, so it was great to finally meet him. anyways, mr. macfadden took an interest in my topic during the course of our conversation, and recommended a book to me — the unreal america: architecture and illusion by ada louise huxtable.
i flipped through the book ever so briefly after it arrived from amazon.com, and it’s a goldmine. covering issues like historical representation through vernacular architecture and structural simulacrum (real fake versus fake fake), huxtable’s book has provided a very thorough analysis of some of the issues that themerica will touch upon. i will be sure to add this author to the list of scholars and professionals i will be interviewing later on in the project.