The Palm Springs School: Desert Modernism 1934-1975 by Alan Hess
This extensive and
well-researched history sets Palm Springs in a wide context of architectural
history, looking at the work done in the desert from viewpoints on modernism,
preservation, culture, and influence. It looks back, historically naming a “Palm
Springs School,” as at the time, even though most were steeped in modernism,
there wasn’t a cohesive movement. Different from other “schools,” Hess notes:
“They had no charismatic leader, no dominant personality … like Frank Lloyd
Wright was for the Prairie School or Paul Rudolph was for the Sarasota School.
They were a college of equals addressing the same basic issues in their own
individual ways.” Even so, while concerning itself with the vast range of
modern architects throughout the area, the book zeroes in on the Mount Rushmore
of Palm Springs architects: William F. Cody, Albert Frey, E. Stewart Williams, and
Donald Wexler (I would have added William Krisel). Essays by additional
historians—including SAH/SCC President Sian Winship’s “From Reservation to Real
Estate Empire”—investigate various aspects of history and context.
