Hollywood Bowl: The First 100 Years
Written by Derek Traub
Edited by Robin Rauzi and Julia Ward
Designed by Content Object, Kimberly Varella
Casebound Hardcover, 320 pages
Publishers: Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Los Angeles
ISBN: 978-0-9716124-2-6
Dimensions: 7 × 10 in.
Separations: Echelon Color, Santa Monica, CA
Printing: VeronaLibri, Verona, Italy
The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hollywood Bowl commissioned a publication in celebration of the iconic venue’s 100th anniversary (original D.O.B. 1921). In a nod to the Bowl’s earlier Streamline Moderne incarnation, the cover showcases a customized mashup of Futura (used for The Bowl’s brand, Paul Renner) and Bifur (Adolphe Mouron Cassandre) in a holographic foil treatment. Beneath the jacket, the Bodonian binding technique used exposes the spines of the signatures, giving a “behind-the-scenes” look into the construction of the book.
Through the course of ten chapters, each focusing on a roughly chronological segment of the past, a story is woven from disparate threads of music, social causes, spectacle, and celebrity. The structure of the book alternates between the generously illustrated text and extended sections of images only, where documentary photography is juxtaposed with printed ephemera. Because each image section uses an intense color to backdrop the images, the structure of the book is legible just by looking at the fore-edge.
The extensive research results in a beautiful anachronistic cacophony that only such a history can tell.
Photography by Ian Byers-Gamber
