California architecture began with indigenous dwellings, mobile and sustainable camps that could change with the seasons. As Spanish settlers brought Continental structures and influences, permanent dwellings and churches speckled the landscape. The Missions gleaned influence from Spain’s haciendas, whose tilework, atria and fountains, originated in the medinas of North Africa. As California shifted hands from Spain to Mexico to the U.S., a polygot style emerged, encompassing Victorian flourishes, Craftsman handiwork, and Mexican rancho aesthetic. Then Modernism exploded. Light-filled boxes landed by the ocean, in the deserts, and atop our mountains. Indoor-outdoor spaces and swimming pools became accoutrements to the suburban experience. Googie diners and drive-ins brought atomic age futurism to strip-malls and subdivisions. Streamline-moderne stranded ship-like buildings in neighborhoods. Design moved in tandem with architecture, marrying form and function in objects that defied expectations of traditionalists. In California, novelty, and sometimes kitch, can drive innovation, and push intangible ideas into the third dimension as a plan and a blueprint becomes the skeleton and skin of structures.