Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California
Edited with text and oral histories by David Jacob Kramer. Foreword by Jentri Anders. Photographs by Michael Schmelling.
A compendium of unseen folk architecture and a cultural history of 1960s NorCal utopianism
Published with Edition Patrick Frey.
Half a century ago, a legion of young idealists dropped out of society and went “back to the land,” creating a patchwork of utopian communes across Northern California. Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California tracks down the rogue souls still committed to this way of life, capturing their handbuilt, otherworldly residences alongside the stories of how they came to be—at what is now the tail end of one generation’s grand social experiment. Handmade Utopia travels the length of Northern California, which formed the epicenter of the movement, journeying down hidden dirt roads and deep into redwood forests to discover handmade homes kept hidden for decades. Michael Schmelling’s photography documents how these structures appear today and David Jacob Kramer’s oral histories detail how they came to be, and are presented alongside a plethora of archival materials. In the mid-1960s, back-to-the-landers fled a Bay Area that had become over-policed and overrun with runaways, drugs and commercial exploitation. These new pioneers taught themselves to farm, practiced free love and generated radical new architectural styles. Only a fraction of these pioneers stuck it out for the decades following the Summer of Love. These flinty souls remain a study in principled self-reliance and human ingenuity. They are now in their 70s and 80s and the question arises of what they will leave behind, literally and figuratively. For decades they have kept these experimental homes hidden, long fearful of building inspectors and drug squads. Handmade Utopia presents these structures as artworks in their own right, captured at a moment when they risk being lost forever.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Aperture
Jeremy Miller
[Schmelling] and Kramer’s interests run deeper than architectural oddities. It is the personal stories of the men and women who built these homes that most interest them.
Featured spreads are from D.A.P. and Edition Patrick Frey’s highly-anticipated, 496-page new release Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California, collecting oral histories by Heads Together author David Jacob Kramer and photographs by Michael Schmelling. Featuring more than 780 reproductions, this is a true labor of love by lovers of idealistic, homegrown labor. “In pursuit of something better, back-to-the-landers radically reappraised what a home could and should be—and how it might inform the lives of its inhabitants,” Kramer writes. “Though the vast majority eventually retreated to more conventional urban and suburban lives, a handful have stuck it out and remain on-the-land today. Their homes have evolved according to need and available resources, their means of construction reflecting their aspirations and dissensions. This generation is now in their seventies and eighties. Their homes are remote, far from grandchildren and healthcare. Living off-grid is hard work. In rural NorCal, storms take down ‘widowmakers,’ deadly branches that block roads and wreck roofs. Climate change has meant more wildfires, longer droughts and dried-up wells. The legalization of pot has caused a core source of the community’s income to shrivel. New buyers don’t always want the liability of a home built in defiance of building codes. Many of these houses are strange and impractical, never constructed for their resale promise, anticapitalistic to their foundations.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 9 x 12 in. / 496 pgs / 769 color / 15 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $65.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $90 ISBN: 9781636812298 PUBLISHER: D.A.P. AVAILABLE: 9/1/2026 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA AFR ME
Handmade Utopia Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California
Published by D.A.P.. Edited with text and oral histories by David Jacob Kramer. Foreword by Jentri Anders. Photographs by Michael Schmelling.
A compendium of unseen folk architecture and a cultural history of 1960s NorCal utopianism
Published with Edition Patrick Frey.
Half a century ago, a legion of young idealists dropped out of society and went “back to the land,” creating a patchwork of utopian communes across Northern California. Handmade Utopia: Back-to-the-Land Architecture in Northern California tracks down the rogue souls still committed to this way of life, capturing their handbuilt, otherworldly residences alongside the stories of how they came to be—at what is now the tail end of one generation’s grand social experiment. Handmade Utopia travels the length of Northern California, which formed the epicenter of the movement, journeying down hidden dirt roads and deep into redwood forests to discover handmade homes kept hidden for decades. Michael Schmelling’s photography documents how these structures appear today and David Jacob Kramer’s oral histories detail how they came to be, and are presented alongside a plethora of archival materials.
In the mid-1960s, back-to-the-landers fled a Bay Area that had become over-policed and overrun with runaways, drugs and commercial exploitation. These new pioneers taught themselves to farm, practiced free love and generated radical new architectural styles. Only a fraction of these pioneers stuck it out for the decades following the Summer of Love. These flinty souls remain a study in principled self-reliance and human ingenuity. They are now in their 70s and 80s and the question arises of what they will leave behind, literally and figuratively. For decades they have kept these experimental homes hidden, long fearful of building inspectors and drug squads. Handmade Utopia presents these structures as artworks in their own right, captured at a moment when they risk being lost forever.
