Residence by William Alexander, Los Angeles, California, 1952

In the 1950s and 60s, photographer Julius Shulman documented the sci-fi domes, clean lines and tiki details of American modernist architecture.

All photos: Julius Shulman/J.Paul Getty Trust, taken from Julius Shulman: Modernism Rediscovered, published by Taschen

Frey Residence I by Albert Frey, Palm Springs, California, 1956

A disciple of Le Corbusier, Albert Frey brought modernism to the wind-whipped desert in Palm Springs. His house was a bunker against the extreme desert elements, protected with sliding doors and heat-reflecting surfaces; the playful dining table in the foreground could be raised and lowered with a clothesline.

View of the Lever House by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (viewed through the colonnade of Philip Johnson’s Seagram Building), New York, 1959

As well as California, Shulman photographed the stunning modernist skyscrapers of New York, such as Lever House. Shulman is stood beneath the Seagram Building, designed by New York’s prince of modernism, Mies van der Rohe.

Greene Residence (‘Prairie Chicken’ House) by Herb Greene, Norman, Oklahoma, 1961

Built as his family home four miles east of Norman, Oklahoma, Greene recruited his own architecture students to help build it. ‘This 1961 structure created an architectural sensation,’ Shulman says. ‘There was nothing about this house that resembled any other home ever created. I spent four days on assignment here, sleeping in the bed portrayed, with a spectacular view of the prairies illuminated by lightning flashes as far as you could see’

Photo: J.Paul Getty Trust/Julius Shulman

Cunningham Residence by Herb Greene, Oklahoma City, 1962

Greene said he created the long, curved roof of this audacious property as an ‘attempt to evoke a certain kind of aspiration’. Wood, plaster, glass and brick were used to complement the owner’s collection of furniture by the likes of Saarinen, Eames, Nelson and Noguchi

Photo: J.Paul Getty Trust/Julius Shulman

Greenberg Residence by Buff & Hensman, Palos Verdes, California, 1966

Conrad Buff and Donald Hensman were architects who built houses for the likes of Steve McQueen and Saul Bass, the latter pioneering in its creation of different zones: work, formal and family.

Spring Hotel, Bequia, by Crites & McConnell, St Vincent and the Grenadines, 1967

A nine-room hotel on a former plantation in the Caribbean, ‘this project is oriented primarily to views which reveal the splendor of the site and the interplay of interiors and exteriors’, Shulman explains. ‘The native stone walls serve to buffer the extensive use of native wood.’

Woods Residence (‘The Dome House’) by Soleri & Mills, Cave Creek, Arizona, 1950

While building this astonishing house for a woman named Leonora Woods, Paolo Soleri – a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright – fell in love with her daughter. He asked for her hand in marriage in lieu of payment, which Woods accepted.