Palm Springs Modern - Part 1

My earliest memory of Palm Springs, California, is riding the aerial tram on my dad's shoulders when I was 8 years old (and my head pounding while hiking at 10,000 ft.). I thought of Palm Springs as just another place to stop in the desert. When I was older, I was vaguely aware that some famous people lived there, but they were old-timers, most of whom I was not familiar with (except for Bob Hope from re-runs of the "Road" movies). I doubt that I ever thought much about the architecture, other than that it was the typical, outdated architecture I was used to in areas that were not new or renovated. So, when I recently became interested in midcentury modern architecture (no longer outdated, now it's retro and cool), I was excited to discover that Palm Springs is considered a mecca of this style. The city even has an Architecture and Design Center branch of the Palm Springs Art Museum and an annual Modernism Week to "celebrate and foster appreciation of midcentury architecture and design." Modernism Week 2016 happened to fall during my visit home for my sister's surprise birthday party.

The Architecture and Design Center is housed in the former Santa Fe Federal Savings & Loan building, designed by E. Stewart Williams, 1960

Modernism Week (actually 11 days) is packed full of walking tours, double decker bus tours, cocktail parties, exhibits, home tours, films, lectures, and expos. However, these events are not inexpensive. 

Modernism Week Headquarters, located in the former Robinson Department Store 

building, 1958, by Charles Luckman Associates and William L. Pereira

I decided to forgo the guided tours, wait until the day after Design Week ended (to avoid the crowds), and do my own self-guided touring. I prepared with lots of info from the internet, but I also bought the $5 Map of Modern Palm Springs at the Visitors Center. Conveniently, the Visitors Center itself is one of Palm Springs' iconic midcentury modern buildings. The former Tramway Gas Station is one of the first buildings you see upon entering Palm Springs from the north, the "Gateway to the Coachella Valley."

Tramway Gas Station, Albert Frey and Robson Chambers, 1965.

Now the Palm Springs Visitors Center

The hyperbolic paraboloid roof spans more than 95 feet.

In addition to the gas station, Albert Frey (1903-1998) designed numerous homes and buildings during the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. He was a Swiss architect who worked for the famed International Style architect Le Corbusier in 1928-1929 in Paris before immigrating to the United States and becoming one of the founders of Desert Modernism in the Palm Springs area. He believed that modern architecture could provide social liberation through machine-made, affordable designs that are integrated into the surrounding landscape. His favorite materials were aluminum, glass, cables and even the boulders of the desert where his designs were built. He is one of the architects honored with a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars (in front of the Architecture and Design Center). Frey died in Palm Springs at the age of 95.

The Palm Springs Walk of Stars includes architectural photographer Julius Schulman and architects Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, William F. Cody, E. Stewart Williams, Donald Wexler, William Krisel, A. Quincy Jones, and Hugh Kaptur.

Frey House II, 1963-64. Albert Frey's second Palm Springs home. He lived here until his death. It is not generally open to the public and I missed out on a chance to tour it during Modernism Week.

Frey House II, photo by Julius Shulman. The architecture incorporated the landscape,

including a huge boulder protruding into the house.

Palm Springs City Hall, by Albert Frey, John Porter Clark, 
Robson Chambers and E. Stewart Williams 1952

Screen wall made from metal tubing cut at angles to block the morning sun

Another view of City Hall

I was surprised to see that the Hollywood stars' homes (at least the few I saw - Dinah Shore's, Frank Sinatra's, and Elvis') were in regular housing tracts, not hidden away behind tall walls and long drives. The Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway is also known as The House of Tomorrow/The Alexander Estate. Robert Alexander was a residential developer who built over 2500 houses in the Palm Springs area, mostly in the 1950’s. He hired his friend William Krisel who designed most of the homes that came to be to known as “Alexanders.” Most were variations on a single design, but some were experiments such as The House of Tomorrow. Alexander liked it so much he moved into it. It's built on three levels with four circles - no square rooms. The Alexanders were killed in a plane crash and Elvis Presley leased the house in 1966-67. He and Priscilla Presley spent their honeymoon here.

The Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway/The House of Tomorrow/The Alexander Estate
Designed by William Krisel, 1962

Interior photo from the Elvis Honeymoon home’s website

William Krisel (born 1924) is an American architect. He was born in China to American parents; they moved to Beverly Hills when he was 13, and he graduated from USC in 1949. He focused on affordable, functional, comfortable, modernist houses, specializing in housing tracts. He designed more than 30,000 homes in Southern California. (I grew up in a Southern California home built in 1964, but it wasn't in the modernist style. Even if it had been, I'm sure I would not have appreciated it at the time.) Krisel is one of the few midcentury modern architects who has lived to participate in the resurgence of modernism in Palm Springs. He has contributed to the restoration of many of his original designs and to new construction of exact replicas of his midcentury designs with all new materials aimed towards LEED certification.

Several "Alexander" tract homes designed by William Krisel:  

The Alexander Construction Company also worked with architects Donald Wexler (1926-2015) and Richard Harrison who introduced an all-steel system for the prefabrication of affordable houses for the desert. The homes were built primarily of steel and glass and were impervious to heat, warping, rotting, swelling, termites, earthquakes and fire, and they were very low maintenance.  Seven model homes were built in 1961-62 for the planned housing tract of 38 (the houses each took only two days to build); however, the price of steel went up before the remaining homes were built and the project was cancelled. The seven model homes remain and six have been restored.

A Wexler steel house

Side view of the above Wexler steel house

Another Wexler steel house, 1962

Dinah Shore's house, by Donald Wexler

Richard Neutra (1892–1970), an Austrian architect, immigrated to the U.S. in 1923 and spent most of his career in Southern California. He initially teamed up with Rudolph Schindler (who had previously worked with Frank Lloyd Wright) and later went off on his own and became one of the most important modernist architects. Architectural Digest described him as “a prophet of clean, crisp modernism, and his houses, most of which were built in California, have inspired countless architects and emboldened preservationists...” His most famous house, built in 1946, is the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs. It is considered to be one of the most important houses of the 20th century in the United States. It was commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., a Pittsburgh department store tycoon, as a winter retreat. A decade earlier, Kaufmann commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build another iconic home - Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. The Kaufmann Desert House was made famous by the 1947 photos of renowned architecture photographer Julius Shulman. The home is still privately owned and has since had some famous former owners including Barry Manilow.

Kaufmann House by Richard Neutra, 1946-47

Iconic Kaufmann Desert House photo by Julius Shulman

E. Stewart Williams (1909-2005) was an American architect who graduated from Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania and joined his father’s firm in Palm Springs in 1946. He is another of the desert’s pioneer modernist architects. His works include Frank Sinatra’s home and the Edris House, but he didn't really like designing homes. He much preferred commercial architecture because it “paid better and wasn't so emotional.” Marjorie and William Edris were friends of his and gave him complete design freedom for their home – and no budget! He was more interested in how people actually lived in their homes than in imposing his ideas on them. He carefully considered how his clients lived down to measuring their existing clothing to determine how much hanging space they would need. His commercial designs include the bank building now being used as the Architecture and Design Center, two Coachella Savings and Loan buildings, the Palm Springs Desert Museum (now the art museum), and the Aerial Tramway Mountaintop Station.

Edris House, 1953-54, E. Stewart Williams 

Coachella Valley Savings & Loan #2. A plaque states, “In 1961, architect E. Stewart Williams designed this two-story bank building and received an award for his creative use of concrete in the dramatic upswept columns. A fine example of modern architecture with its ribbed anodized aluminum façade, flat overhanging roof, and clerestory windows, the structure appears to float on a plinth above the street-level fountain.” 

Palm Springs Art Museum, formerly the Palm Springs Desert Museum, 

by E. Stewart Williams, 1976

Continued in Part 2