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Alan Hess (born 1952) is an American architect,[1][2] author, lecturer and advocate for twentieth-century architectural preservation.
"Alan Hess [is] a prominent California architecture critic who has written extensively on roadside strips," writes the New York Times (March 6, 1994). Through 2012, Alan has written and/or co-authored twenty books, published numerous articles on the architecture of Googie, Las Vegas, Frank Lloyd Wright, Oscar Niemeyer, John Lautner, Ranch Houses, Palm Springs, Organic architecture, Mid-century Modern design, and suburbia. He has been the architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News since 1986.[3]
Born in California in 1952, Hess received his BA at Principia College, a master's degree in architecture from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and is a licensed architect. After working with architects William Coburn, and Callister Payne and Bischoff, Hess started his own firm specializing in residential work and historic preservation.[4] His first book, Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture (Chronicle Books 1985) focused on a neglected and popular Modern form. Following books continued to explore overlooked chapters in twentieth-century architecture and urbanism. He is responsible for qualifying several landmark buildings for the National Register of Historic Places, including the oldest operating McDonald's in Downey, Stuart Company Plant and Office Building and Bullock's Pasadena in Pasadena, and the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona. Through his writing, lectures, and educational outreach, Hess has shed light on many forgotten and neglected styles of postwar American architecture - especially in the realm of commercial modern architecture.[5] Googie coffee shops, he said, "brought modern architecture to ordinary people in their everyday lives."[6] The Los Angeles Conservancy has named him "The preeminent authority on Southern California Modernism."[7] He won the group's "President's Award" in 2015.[8]
