Carter Sparks: Architect, Modernist, Friend

Carter Sparks is one of Sacramento’s most recognized and beloved modernist architects, and is best known for his work with Streng Brothers Homes.

Sparks contributed to over 3,000 modern residences in the Sacramento Region. In addition to these plentiful examples, Sparks designed commercial and civic buildings and many custom homes for individual clients, ranging in feature and style from modest low-slung concrete block and plywood structures, to expressionist forms employing hyperbolic roofs and symphonic beam play, to larger cathedrals of redwood and glass.

A charismatic individual, and ardent believer that an architect’s design should be based on an extended study of clients’ wants, needs and personality, Sparks forged close and enduring friendships with many of them.

Curated by Sacramento artist Justin Wood of the Carter Sparks Archive and Sacramento Modern, this exhibition will feature early drawings, renderings, photographs, models and ephemera surveying Sparks’ output from the early 1950s to the early 1990s.