Book excerpt: This monograph explores Frank Israel's recent work in the style of the colourful Californian modernism. Interviewed by James Steele, Israel discusses his early involvement in the film industry and how this led him to his first architectural clients. He speaks of the excitement of juxtaposition in Gehry's work which drew him to LA and of this city's unique characteristics which inevitably shape its architecture: a city of many nuclei, a city which encorages architecture of the private realm, a defensible architecture grown of the pessimism of the moment. He stresses the importance of the site, surrounding buildings, climate and client's ideas in the evolution of a project, showing how, in his project for the arts centre at Riverside, the use of folding planes relates the building to its site and surroundings.