Out of Season: The Vanishing Architecture of the Wildwoods

International photographer Mark Havens celebrates Wildwood, N.J., a seaside resort city with the largest concentration of mid-century modern hospitality architecture in the United States. Out of Season: The Vanishing Architecture of the Wildwoods is a meticulously designed, oversized book boasting 112 photographs of Wildwood's distinctive buildings, considered to be preeminent examples of the Modernist architectural subgenre. Cheaply constructed yet outrageously embellished, motels such as the Satellite, the Monaco and the Kona Kai flaunted their neon lights and brightly colored stucco. Their lowbrow status made them easy prey for demolition when architectural styles changed. As an artist, Havens works to "decelerate or suspend the irreversible flow of time" and thus arranges the photographs, taken over 10 years, according to location and time of day. This gives the sense of time passing and documents the unfortunate deterioration of the endangered structures. Two edifying essays precede the photographs, and the collection includes an appendix of buildings photographed but now demolished. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore
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