Shutter Mike Photography

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a German architect who is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern architecture said: “God is in the details.”   The details in architecture and design can be what differentiate the extraordinary from the everyday.  So of course, the homes on the Modern Phoenix 2011 Home Tour of Sunnyslope have their details, both architecturally and interior design-wise down.

This is part II from yesterday’s post on the Modern Phoenix 2011 Home Tour in the Sunnyslope community of Phoenix.  Yesterday I featured exterior shots, so today we move inside the homes.  Although all the homes fall into the mid-century modern or contemporary modern style, the interior design is unique to each owner.  Some are strict in their modernist design while others are very eclectic.  Familiarize yourself with the terminology of the interior design world
at www.interior-design-degree-online.org and check out the photographs I took below.

2011 marked the 3rd  year that I have attended the Modern Phoenix home tour.  Each year the tour features mid-century modern homes in a different neighborhood or section of the city.  In 2009 the tour highlighted the Founding Father’s of Modern Phoenix.  Anyone familiar with Phoenix’s architectural history is probably familiar with names like Ralph Haver, Al Beadle, Calvin Straub, and Ned Sawyer.  The 2010 home tour was a Return to Paradise with the North Phoenix Paradise Gardens neighborhood featured.

This year, the tour was all about Sunnyslope, another North Phoenix community.  On the surface Sunnyslope is a part of town you may drive through and not think much of or even take notice of for that matter.  It has more than its fair share of run down businesses, strip malls and dilapidated houses.  However, it also has a few hidden gems and several attempts at revitalization underway.  You just have to know where to look or have the benefit of Modern Phoenix putting all the good stuff on the map for you.

While almost all of the homeowners graciously open their homes to hundreds of people to view, in this first post I am focusing on the exterior shots.  But I promise, interior mid-century modern photography is coming up.

I posted a photo of the day featuring the Western Savings & Loan turned salad buffet a while back.  Here are two more views of this mid-century bank architecture in Phoenix.

Check back on Friday for some more photos of this colorful caboose.

As was typical of the 1960s and 1970s, bank architecture was often modern and highly designed.  This vase-like structure is the roof of the former Western Savings & Loan.  Constructed in 1975 near Phoenix’s Metro Center Mall just off of Interstate 17 the architect made the rood reach for the sky in order to make this bank clearly visible to cars zipping past on the Interstate.  Today the building has been repurposed and is an all-you-can-eat salad buffet.