The Edward Killingsworth House (1961), Crosby Doe Associates

Set against the sparkling Pacific shoreline, Long Beach offers one of Southern California’s richest concentrations of modern architecture and provides the perfect setting for a day immersed in California’s modern heritage. On this full-day bus excursion, discover how the city became a hub for innovation in design and planning, from early experiments in modern living to bold postwar expressions of the California lifestyle. Tour the office and residences of local master Edward Killingsworth, renowned for his refined Case Study Houses and expansive glass-and-wood residences, and Cliff May, a pioneer of suburban postwar housing, known widely as the “father of the ranch house.” Along the way, tour attendees will view other landmark designs by Irving Gill, John Lautner, Hugh and Donald Gibbs, and others.

This tour includes a combination of interior site tours, walking and drive-by stops throughout Long Beach’s many Modern-inspired neighborhoods, providing a comprehensive overview of the evolution of Long Beach from a seaside resort town to a laboratory for 20th-century architectural ideas.

$150 USD/person

About the Tour Leader

Brannon Smithwick is a Long Beach local and an architectural historian and preservation planner at Architectural Resources Group in Los Angeles. She holds master’s degrees in Heritage Conservation and Urban Planning from the University of Southern California, as well as an associate’s in Interior Architecture from UCLA. In addition to serving on the board of DoCoMoMo SoCal, Brannon is a member of the Vernacular Architecture Forum where she serves on the Future Visions Committee. Her other memberships include the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Society of Architectural Historians, the International Oral History Association, and ICOMOS/USA World Heritage, for which she was a 2023 International Exchange Program (IEP) intern in Kosovo.