Michele Saee: Buildings & Projects

Michele Saee is a young, widely published Los Angeles-based architect who trained in Italy and worked for the renowned avant-garde firm Morphosis; he started his own practice in 1985. His designs for high-style restaurants and clothing stores in the Los Angeles area respond to the region's dominant automobile culture and indoor-outdoor lifestyle: attention-getting facades with large glass planes and steel sculptural fragments transform standard strip malls and warehouses, and interiors of curved walls and exposed trusses, natural wood, and industrial materials reflect a uniquely Southern California approach to contemporary architecture.

This provocatively designed first monograph on Saee showcases 25 projects in the Los Angeles area, including Angeli Trattoria on Melrose Avenue; two Ecru clothing stores; Design Express, a high-end furniture store; a custom jewelry store; a 20-unit apartment complex; nine private houses; and Saee's furniture designs. Also reproduced here are Saee's evocative "sketches of space" and his accompanying essay on the fundamental link between drawing and the conception of architecture.