“It’s taken several years for me to figure out this book,” Alan Hess says. His previous 20 books on architecture range from studies of atomic age-inspired Googie architecture of Southern California in the 1950s and ’60s to the home designs of Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, and Oscar Niemeyer to ranch homes to Palm Springs. “This new book really does capture it,” Hess says. “It's the fact that Palm Springs attracted these extremely talented and committed modern architects who wanted to use modern architecture to solve the problems of the extreme climate, making houses comfortable using modern materials and methods. Also, the recreational economy of Palm Springs, especially after World War II, transformed the entire American southwest: Phoenix, Albuquerque, Tucson, Reno, Las Vegas. [This] had a tremendous impact on the culture, the economy, the population, [and] the number of people who came here to vacation or to live or to work. There were all of these elements in Palm Springs. It was a small laboratory of how you take modern architectural ideas and create not only houses but [also] churches and schools and shops, and everything you need for a city.”
Hess is a Pasadena native who earned a post-graduate degree in architecture from the UCLA architecture school. He worked with the well-regarded architect Charles Warren Callister in Northern California before founding his own practice and specializing in preservation. Callister’s interest in mid-century modern architecture fed Hess' own interest. “I kept coming back to that period in California architecture,” Hess says. “It had not been documented in the way it should have been. So, that’s led me on in my writing career.”
After writing “Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture” in 1985, Hess wrote about, among other topics, Las Vegas architecture and Lautner’s work. Hess then co-authored “Palm Springs Weekend: The Architecture and Design of a Midcentury Oasis” – published in 2001 – with Andrew Danish. Along with Architectural Digest writer Adele Cygelman’s book “Palm Springs Modern” (published in 1999), the ongoing restoration of Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann house, and GQ creative director Jim Moore’s discovery of Donald Wexler’s Case Study House, a preservationist spotlight suddenly appeared on frayed and decaying Palm Springs.
Hess points out that things really changed for Palm Springs from approximately 1999 to 2000. Before then, there was a steady migration east to communities like La Quinta and Rancho Mirage. Palm Springs began the process of revitalization that continues today. But, it wasn’t spurred by golf, tennis, or celebrity seclusion; it was spurred by architecture. Hess’ and Danish’s book was one of the first to reveal Palm Springs as not only a golf and retirement community but also one of the purest bastions of mid-century modern design. The city is a jewel in the desert that held the masterworks of architects such as Albert Frey, Neutra, E. Stewart Williams, Wexler, William Krisel, William Cody, and many others.
A number of excellent books were published in the last two decades of Palm Springs’s renaissance. These books include photographer Tim Street-Porter’s “Palm Springs: A Modernist Paradise” and a series of light, fun books by historian and preservationist Peter Moruzzi such as “Palm Springs Holiday,” “Palm Springs Tiki,” and “Palm Springs Paradise.” Hess' new book, however, is unique because it is a serious, even academic, approach and study of the architects who transformed Greater Palm Springs. “There are a lot of good books that have been about Palm Springs, but they have been focused on a particular architect or building or on the Rat Pack or the Hollywood connection,” Hess says. “There hasn’t been a book that has stepped back and looked more broadly at the underlying feature that produced all this.”
Some scholarly works critically examine schools of architecture such as the Harvard Five, Sarasota, and the Chicago School, according to Hess. But, his book is the first to make the argument that the Palm Springs School “is the equivalent … and made new arguments about modern architecture just like Sarasota and the Harvard Five.” (The term “Palm Springs School” was first coined by Williams’s daughter, Sydney Williams – former curator of art and architecture at the Palm Springs Art Museum – at a 2014 lecture comparing the architecture of Sarasota and Palm Springs.)
Hess says that a both positive and negative aspect of Palm Springs’ architectural story has to do with Palm Springs’ (and surrounding communities’) reputation for fun and sun – its international renown as a mecca for hedonism, recreation, and Hollywood/celebrity frivolity. In other words, Hess points out, nothing was perceived as serious here. Hess says that point entirely misses the positive side of the equation. “Palm Springs’ contribution to the story, [as well as] the history of modern architecture, is pleasure,” he says. “Modern architecture was often thought of as very academic, very serious … worker housing to create clean, healthy housing for the masses. That’s all very good, but modern architecture also could be about pleasure. Palm Springs [architecture] has a connection to the climate, to living indoors and outdoors, [and] living in the beauty, not only in terms of views but [also] in terms of colors and materials connecting these houses to the desert. It was about living in nature … the pleasure of nature was so integral to everything. It would be something that would be fun for daily life. Modern architecture didn’t have to be like wearing a hair shirt.”
A good example of the pleasure principle in Palm Springs architecture is Frey House II. It is a perfect capsule of pleasure – the swimming pool, the use of materials, and the views. All add up to Frey’s formula of how to use the greatest pleasures of his environment … both the one he created and the one that surrounded him. Hess says Cody’s own house is also a perfect expression of taking pleasure from one’s environment. “It’s just an incredibly pleasant place to be,” Hess says. “You do not know if you’re inside or outside when you’re in those rooms. There are atriums and the views. You completely have the sense that you’re sheltered, but you are enjoying being outside as well: the air, the views, the plants … all of it.”
Unlike his previous books, Hess invited a number of architects and scholars to contribute essays to his new book to provide a variety of perspectives on the unique nature of the Palm Springs School. “I invited five people [to contribute],” Hess says. “George Thomas, who has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, wrote about the history of recreational architecture in America going back to before the Civil War … Christine Madrid French … is an expert on Sarasota, Florida, and I asked her to compare the two, small recreational cities and what they were able to produce … and Sian Winship, who is a historian here in LA (and president of [the Society of] Architectural Historians, Southern California chapter), wrote about the role of the Aqua Caliente (Band of Cahuilla Indians) in Palm Springs. The latter is a contentious story that’s not really been told. Sian wrote an essay on the role of the tribe and how it has evolved over the years … and how they became landowners and had a role in choosing how areas, both Section 14 and the Canyon Country area, … came to be developed. Ken Lyon, who was the preservation officer for the city, wrote about the history of preservation … and Eddie Jones, who is a practicing architect in Phoenix and very familiar with Palm Springs, wrote about environmental issues.”
Hess’ greatest hope for the book is that it will spur extensive dialogue about modern architecture. “I wrote ‘Palm Springs Weekend’ more than 20 years ago, but I’ve still been learning about Palm Springs,” he says. “Coming back to [the subject] to write this book really helped me to pull together a number of ideas. I’m definitely not repeating what I’ve written before. There’s a lot here to be mined and written about. My hope is that this book will spur some broader discussions about modern architecture.”