The longer [one lives], the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.

-Frank Lloyd Wright

Architecture has been a vital part of Max Strang's life since an early age. He grew up in a house designed by the noted 'Sarasota School' architect Gene Leedy, who happened to be the father of his closest childhood friend. Many youthful days were spent tagging along to build sites, inspiring a love of design that only fully manifested years later. Early in his career he worked for Leedy, then Zaha Hadid and SHoP Architects, before returning to Florida to start his eponymous firm, which uses each successive project to physically manifest theories born of Strang’s early exposure to the modernist works of the Sarasota School of Architecture and the modernist works who celebrated the Florida climate, creating contemporary structures intimately connected to their surroundings.

The work of [STRANG] is beautifully explored in this robust monograph which highlights the firm’s site-specific and climate-driven designs. The ability to create stunning architectural designs while maintaining an acute awareness of the surrounding environment has come to define their work. Under the creative direction of Max Strang FAIA, the Miami-based firm continues to advance many of the timeless concepts set forth by the famed Sarasota School of Architecture. Strang’s early exposure to that mid-century modernist movement resulted in a deep respect for structures that are intimately connected to their surroundings as they celebrate the Florida climate.

This first monograph of Strang’s work contains a collection of conceptual drawings, text and professional photography that underscores the ongoing relevance and importance of regional modernist design. It is the architectural responses to site and climate that infuse the specific designs with character and identity, resulting in a uniquely Floridian version of modernism.

This essential monograph, the first on the award-winning Miami and Telluride-based firm, features twelve waterfront residences and a chronology section with additional built and unbuilt work. Photography by Claudia Uribe Touri, Claudio Manzoni, Ezra Stoller, Gene Leedy, Paul Warchol and others, are bolstered by essays on Florida Modern Architecture by the design and culture critic Byron Hawes.

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