Sunshine and nature: California as a beacon of better health
Since the mid-19th century, the idea of California has lured many waves of migrants. Here, writer and editor Lyra Kilston explores a less examined attraction: the region’s promise of better health. From ailing families seeking a miracle climate cure to iconoclasts and dropouts pursuing a remedy to societal corruption, the abundance of sunshine and untamed nature around the small but growing Los Angeles area offered them refuge and inspiration.
In the wild west of medical practice, eclectic nature-cure treatments gained popularity. The source for this trend can be traced to the mountains and cold-water springs of Europe, where early sanatoriums were built to offer the natural cures of sun, air, water and diet; this sanatorium architecture was exported to the West Coast from Central Europe, and began to impact other types of building.
Sun Seekers: The Cure of California constitutes the second volume of The Illustrated America (following 2016's Old Glory), Atelier Éditions’ ongoing series excavating America’s cultural past.
Lyra Kilston is a writer and editor focused on architecture, history, design and urbanism. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, Time, Wired and Hyperallergic, among other publications. She was on the curatorial team of Overdrive: LA Constructs the Future, 1940–1990, exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Building Museum.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Sun Seekers.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Palm Springs Life
Lyra Kilston
He wasn’t sick, but laborer-turned-hermit William Pester found many reasons to seek a cure in the canyons near Palm Springs.
Eye of Photography
Since the mid-19th century, the idea of California has lured many waves of migrants. Here, writer and editor Lyra Kilston explores a less examined attraction: the region’s promise of better health.
Los Angeles Times
Sharon Mizota
It’s an engaging, copiously illustrated read, creatively toeing the line between history and art book.
KCET
Lyra Kilston
A book that highlights Southern California's lesser-known histories.
American Way
Shtetl in the Sun’s tribe and the world they built is gone. But thanks to Sweet’s vision, it is not forgotten.
Ursula
Madeleine Taurins
Lyra Kilston's first book explores the (often self-perpetuating) myth of Southern California as a mecca of health and wellness by dialing back to the lesser-known origins of that wholesome renown, looking at naturopaths, healers and architects who praised the merits of plantbased diets, sunshine, and minimal spaces long before the 1960s.
A Daily Dose of Architecture Books
The story of the Health House is one of three in Lyra Kilston's highly enjoyable Sun Seekers, in which charismatic characters converged on California in the first half of the 20th century to soak up the state's apparently life-sustaining natural climate.
Zócalo Public Square
The profound influence of these sanatoriums, health-conscious design, and the lifestyle of the likes of William Pester continue to resonate in present-day Southern California. Sun Seekers highlights these lesser-known characters and stories and traces the evolution of Southern California’s health-focused culture, recycling trend after trend—from holistic celebrity doctors to restaurants promoting “living” foods.
Curbed
Patrick Sisson
In Sun Seekers, author Lyra Kilston connects the city’s wellness culture to its streamlined, sun-drenched homes.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Larb Av
If you’ve ever marveled at the modern architectural jewels that dot the L.A. landscape and fantasized about a refined European expat community that built them, prepare to have your dreams recast (in the best SoCal tradition). Lyra spins fascinating tales that will challenge your understanding of L.A. history.
LA Weekly
Fascinating and fun, Sun Seekers thoroughly chronicles the far-out history of California’s holistic-minded denizens and the lasting resonance of their quests for alternative modes of sustenance and environmental bliss.
Hyperallergic
Elisa Wouk Almino
[The] open architecture of European sanatoriums influenced the homes nestled in Southern California’s hills, such as Richard Neutra’s famous Lovell Health House. From natural medicine to nudism, Sun Seekers covers a fascinating history and its playful, vivid writing makes it a pleasure to read.
Architect's Newspaper
Editors
This beautifully produced book truly has it all: heliotherapy, raw foods, German proto-hippies, naturopathic zealotry, experimental sanatorium design, a brief history of granola, and a discussion of Richard Neutra’s musings for Nude Living magazine
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This year, we're celebrating Earth Day with a book like no other: Sun Seekers: The Cure of California, Lyra Kilston's fascinating and beautifully designed new examination of the Golden State's sunny, healthful and unorthodox mythology as related to modernist architecture, natural medicine and a certain midcentury anti-civilization appreciation for novelties like vegetarianism, eugenics, nudism and heliotherapy. Published by the sophisticated London-based Atelier Editions, this volume investigates "the myth of California as a cure itself," Kilston writes, calling the state "a giant natural sanatorium." Top spread features Pauline Schindler (wife of architect Rudolph Schindler) and Leah Lovell (progressive teacher and wife of natural health guru "Dr." Philip M. Lovell, ND, as in self-coined Doctor of Neuropathy, born Morris Saperstein) with their young students (including two sons of the photographer Edward Weston) in Leah's "School in the Garden" in the Lovell's Hollywood Health House, designed by Richard Neutra, circa 1925. Middle spread is from the chapter on the Lovell's Newport Beach House, completed in 1926. Bottom spread features a woman exercising on the terrace of German architect Richard Döcker's house in the Werkbundsiedlung, Stuttgart, circa 1926—an inspiration for the ex-pat California Modernists. continue to blog
Published by Atelier Éditions. By Lyra Kilston. Edited by Ananda Pellerin.
Sunshine and nature: California as a beacon of better health
Since the mid-19th century, the idea of California has lured many waves of migrants. Here, writer and editor Lyra Kilston explores a less examined attraction: the region’s promise of better health. From ailing families seeking a miracle climate cure to iconoclasts and dropouts pursuing a remedy to societal corruption, the abundance of sunshine and untamed nature around the small but growing Los Angeles area offered them refuge and inspiration.
In the wild west of medical practice, eclectic nature-cure treatments gained popularity. The source for this trend can be traced to the mountains and cold-water springs of Europe, where early sanatoriums were built to offer the natural cures of sun, air, water and diet; this sanatorium architecture was exported to the West Coast from Central Europe, and began to impact other types of building.
Sun Seekers: The Cure of California constitutes the second volume of The Illustrated America (following 2016's Old Glory), Atelier Éditions’ ongoing series excavating America’s cultural past.
Lyra Kilston is a writer and editor focused on architecture, history, design and urbanism. Her work has appeared in Artforum, Los Angeles Review of Books, Time, Wired and Hyperallergic, among other publications. She was on the curatorial team of Overdrive: LA Constructs the Future, 1940–1990, exhibited at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Building Museum.
