Rost Architects Interview with Alan Hess - Part Two Desert Modernism

In spring of 2021, we had the opportunity to speak with Architectural historian Alan Hess. Alan has written over 20 books on the topic of modern architectural history ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright to Palm Springs Modernism. In this segment, we're going to discuss the history of modern architecture in Palm Springs California. Palms Springs is a locus of modern architecture in the United States. It has perhaps one of the highest concentrations of historically significant mid century modern architecture anywhere in the world. Listen as we discuss the architects and their buildings that contributed in the creation of Palms Springs, California.

Rost Architects Interview with Alan Hess - Part Two

Mitchell   00:00

Welcome to part two of our discussion with Alan Hess. Alan is an author, architectural historian, and lecturer specializing in Mid Century Modern Architecture History primarily in Southern California. In this segment, we're going to discuss the history of modern architecture in Palm Springs. We will discuss the key architects that contributed to the movement, their buildings and impact on the history of Palm Springs. Alan thanks for being with us. How did modern architecture come to Palm Springs?

Alan   00:59

Palm Springs developed in the mid-20th century and displayed a unique approach to modern architecture with a wide variety of building types using modern concepts, logic and materials. Palm Springs was almost completely ignored until about the year 2000 or so. It was a small enclave, known for its Hollywood glamour, vacationing, tennis and golf. Few people realized that it had a unique architectural heritage until about 2000. Around that time, notoriety quickly spread for being a time capsule of mid-century modern architecture. Why? Going back to the 1920s, especially after World War II, it was a place which had wealth, and so there were clients who were able to build houses. After World War II, it began to grow rapidly. There was a need for schools, churches, stores, and gas stations.  There was a handful of skilled modern architects that immigrated there, so there were talented individuals able to provide an array of building types for the modern city. There was a wide variety of talented architects there filled with new ideas. Richard Neutra, one of the most notable architects in the area, builds the Kaufmann house, which is one of the best known modern houses in the world. The home was built for Edgar Kaufmann, one of the great patrons of modernism.

Edgar Kauffman had also hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design Fallingwater, his other vacation home in Pennsylvania, he was an extraordinary man. But then there was also on the other side of the spectrum, John Lautner, who builds a number of houses in the area. The Elrod house is probably his best known that appeared in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever, the famous scene where Bambi and thump, James Bond, they all end up in the pool. This home was not steel and glass, it was concrete, and glass, and buried in the earth, it was very organic, and the shapes and materials were much more relatable to those found in nature. There were also people like Donald Wexler in Palm Springs. Donald Wexler had actually worked for Richard Neutra, before he moved to Palm Springs. He maintained this idea of simplicity using wood post and beam construction in some houses and also steel houses. But he took it a step further by creating a series of mass produced prefabricated steel houses in the early 1960s. So, there's yet that idea going on and then you have somebody like William Cody, who frankly is one of my favorite of the Palm Springs architects, who worked in many different materials. Some of his buildings are just so refined and just distilled down to the absolute essence of the structure. But then he also designed St. Teresa's Church, which is this beautiful organic concrete forms, that create an enclave where the interior of the church is actually sitting in what feels like a garden as well.

In Palm Springs modern architecture you typically see a strong relationship between the indoors and outdoors to take advantage of the gorgeous climate and views of the natural landscape. Another great Palm Springs architect was Stewart Williams. Stewart Williams toured Northern Europe,  and the Scandinavian countries. He became fascinated by architects like Alvar Alto, and their interpretation of modernism. Alto’s approach to modernism which was actually more organic using wood and other natural materials. His architecture was warmer than other European modernists. You also have the architect Albert Frey. He was Swiss born, and worked for Le Corbusier in Europe. He always wanted to move to America because it meant the future, so he comes to Palm Springs in the 1930s.

Frey lived into his 90s in the 1990s and designs in schools in churches, and perhaps most notably a gas station in Palms Springs, which is still there. It's the visitor center on the north side of town and it is this wonderful, hyper parabolic roofline stretching out over what were the gas tanks themselves were located. It functions as a wonderful marker and it marks the gateway to Palm Springs. It is one of the great buildings of Palm Springs and fortunately it was preserved. It was one of the key buildings that helped re-kindle the interest in Palm Springs around 2000. It was going to be torn down for a shopping center, but local activists got together, saved it and turned it into an art gallery and then the visitor center. But what would Palm Springs be today without Albert Frey right at the entry to town?

Mitchell   08:03

It's an icon.

Alan   08:04

It says everything you need to know about Palm Springs.

Mitchell   08:08

Yes, the notion of creatively joining manufactured architectural elements and juxtaposing them with natural elements, runs consistent through many of the architects core philosophies or ideas practicing in Palm Springs at the time. For example, the Elrod House by John Lautner, how he joins natural boulders and glass to form part of the building enclosure. Albert Frey did something similar in his personal home. Frey uses multiple industrial materials, but then clads site walls and the fireplace with the local stone there. The juxtaposition between these modern manufactured materials and the rugged textured natural stone is a bold and brilliant move. It produces beautiful results.

Alan   08:37

Yes and again, this is one aspect that makes the connection of the history of Palm Springs to architecture today. Especially this concern about the climate, about how do you deal with the sun? How do you deal with extremes of hot and cold through architecture?  Many of these buildings are designed to be passive solar designs. Architects were working on these challenges 50, 60, 70 years ago in Palm Springs. These are issues which are still facing today. There are lessons and strategies that architects developed during this era that can be used to solve the problems of today.

Mitchell   09:24

Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House is a perfect example that illustrates how architects were thinking about climate, temperature and human senses. In the home he heats the exterior pool deck and the interior floor of the home with a radiant floor heating system. The idea was to blur the boundary between the indoors and outdoors. When someone in the home would walk from the interior of the home out to the pool deck with bare feet, they would not be able to easily distinguish in interior vs the exterior. This in effect would reinforce the connection between indoors and outdoor spaces as though there were no perceivable boundaries to the home and it simply just flowed out into nature.

Alan   09:50

And again, that's the thing combining nature with the architecture with the daily life and comfort and pleasure of the clients.

Mitchell   10:00

Right. So, talk to us about William Krisel, and his strategy of mass produce housing in Palm Springs.

Alan   10:10

Well, this is another lesson that Architects today can learn from Palm Springs. Palm Springs isn't just these magnificent, luxurious, expensive houses like the Kauffman house, or the Elrod house. There was also a demand for mass produced housing as Palm Springs grew in the 1950s, and 60s. One of the architects that attempted to address this challenge creatively was William Krisel, of Palmer and Krisel Architects.  They had already been designing mass produced tract housing in Los Angeles when one of their clients, Bob and George Alexander wanted to create mass produced tracks in Palm Springs. Now, the idea of mass production is that you make houses more affordable, because you're repeating the same materials, the same plans, you're cutting the cost of an individual unit, because you're building so many of them at one time and Bill Krisel was really was intrigued by that idea.

He was a modernist, he went to USC, and he was interested in the mechanics of modernism, the technology of mass production. He wanted to answer the question, how do you create homes at a lower price point, but also to make them modern? So, many of his homes have a butterfly rooflines for example, which bring in clear story light from above, to balance light in the living room. He's always thinking about the architecture, the experience of the client residing in this house, and using modern materials and textures and technology to achieve that.

Mitchell   12:19

Architects such as A. Quincy Jones and Donald Wexler designed for Eichler the home developer. Did Krisel ever design for Eichler?

Alan   12:34

Krisel didn't ever design anything for Eichler. But you have to remember in putting this whole history together today, we do think of course of the Eichler subdivisions in Northern California and here in Southern California, Joseph Eichler the builder, not the architect, right. But this idea of bringing good modern design to mass produced tract housing, which, of course was exploding all over the United States. In the 50s and 60s, there's such a huge demand for affordable decent housing of that sort. So, Eichler kind of gets a lot of the attention. But there were these other architects and developers who were doing the same thing. George and Bob Alexander were builders, who were working with Bill CRISIL at the same time. So, as we get into this history, we're realizing that there was a lot more of that modern housing, being built, certainly here in Southern California.

Mitchell   13:38

Wasn’t the original intention of the case study house program to make modern houses somewhat available to or affordable to the masses?

Alan   13:46

Yes, that was the intent of the case study house program in Arts and Architecture magazine. Today those houses sell for millions of dollars, so it didn't quite achieve the goal of affordable housing for the masses and which is why we should pay attention to especially people like Bill Krisel, because he designed a lot of tracks right here in Orange County, as well, with many of these same ideas and so, modernism isn't just for the wealthy. The whole idea of modernism was to bring the advantages of mass production in the 20th century, to improve the lives of the average person, the factory workers and nurses and just average people and this was one way that Krisel and developers like the Alexander's did that.

Mitchell   14:48

I know that. In Richard Neutra’s autobiography, he had a similar perspective on it. He's also known for designing large luxury expensive homes, but in his autobiography he stated that he liked to design with simple materials. I spoke with Raymond Neutra about that in our interview and he reiterated that luxury design did not mean you had to design with extremely expensive materials. He thought that beautiful design could be achieved by everyday materials.

Alan   15:16

And I think partly that's our fault. In general chairs, we kind of worship these beautiful houses that are so luxurious and an ideal of some sort that many of us would like to live in. But the inspiration of modern architecture was not that it was to improve the life of the average person.

Mitchell   15:40

Yeah, I think that in the general public's idea of luxury, right, and I again, I spoke with Raymond Neutra about this or think it was Barbara, but their general public's idea of luxury is these ornate finishes and beautiful plumbing fixtures and things like this and I know our office is definitely in alignment with this philosophy. But we think that the ultimate luxury is your proximity to nature, your connection to nature. So, how does one space or how does one interior space connect with nature? If that connection is very strong, I would define that as luxurious.

Alan   16:14

It improves the pleasure of daily life and there's nothing more luxurious than that.

Mitchell   16:24

Can you tell us more about your program during Modernism Week called the Desert Modernists?

Alan   16:36

Yes, Palm Springs Modernism Week I serve on the Board of modernism week. Of course, it has had to go online through the pandemic. So, one of the videos that we are presenting is a series called Desert Modernists on these architects of Palm Springs, that, fizzy and autos know all about Frey, and Krystal, and Wexler, and Williams and others, but they aren't as well known in the general world and the Internet gives us a chance to really spread the knowledge about these important architects to online. So, I'm doing this series called Desert modernists, which are 12 or 15 minutes, encapsulating each of those individual architects to just let the average person know about who they were, what their buildings look like, why are they important, basically, and the first three that are available right now are on an introduction to the whole series and then went with Cody, and went on Albert Frey, and will continue into the future, later this year, and next year, focusing on the other architects. Now, that series is available right now as we sit on the modernismweek.com website through the end of February 2021. But we will be bringing them back in the future to repeat the ones we've done, and then to add new ones. So, please, for your audience, keep a watch on the modernismweek.com website as these become available in the future.

Mitchell   18:29

For anybody who's interested in watching that series, I would highly recommend it. It's really good overview and introduction the desert modernize. So, Alan thanks for coming in today. Can you give our listeners your website and a way to contact you if they have any questions ?

Alan   18:44

Yes, my website is AlanHess.net and also I'm on Facebook as well. That's probably the best way to keep up with my current activities with historic preservation projects or challenges that I'm involved with. Or just interesting information I've discovered about modern architecture, Southern California architecture. I post that on Facebook.

My books that are still in print are available on Amazon and the 20 of them cover Frank Lloyd Wright my book on John Lautner. But also cities like Palm Springs and Las Vegas, and my first book Googie 50s, coffee shop architecture, about the coffee shops of Southern California for the car culture from the mid-century as well. Also incidentally, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, and one of the first initial buildings was designed by John Lautner that we talked about.

Mitchell   19:53

Well, thanks, Alan. I appreciate it.

Alan   19:56

Thank you, Mitchell.

Mitchell   19:58

Okay, well, thanks for watching the episode. If you'd like to learn more you can visit us at www.rostarchitects.com, if you'd like to see other episodes click right here to learn more. Thank you.