Palm Springs

Desert Palisades guardhouse embodies modern Palm Springs living

Nothing says Palm Springs more than the desert views, glazed expanses, striking cantilever and low-rise, linear forms of this steel and concrete Guardhouse in the city’s Desert Palisades neighbourhood. Designed by California’s prolific contemporary architect Sean Lockyer of Studio AR&...

Architecture / 9 days ago

Palm Springs Modernism Week according to photographers Tom Blachford and Kate Ballis

Photographers Tom Blachford and Kate Ballis are both enthralled by Palm Springs and midcentury modern architecture. Their popular photographic series focussing on the desert town include Midnight Modern (Blachford), and Infra Realism (Ballis). The pair first travelled to Palm Springs together...

Architecture / 25 Jan 2019

The architects who built Palm Springs: E. Stewart Williams

It’s hard to imagine snow in Palm Springs, but at the Aerial Tramway Mountain Station 2,600m above the town in the San Jacinto Mountains, it’s possible and fairly regular. A refuge for hikers and wildlife lovers, the station designed by...

Architecture / 14 Jan 2019

Midcentury modernist enclaves on the East Coast uncovered in smart travel guide

For the residents of Palm Springs – and those who flock to the desert enclave for the annual Modernism Week – midcentury desert modernism is more than an architectural style, it’s a lifestyle choice. No other architectural sub-style has managed...

Architecture / 7 Jan 2019

Frank Sinatra’s Palm Springs retreat is renovated with nostalgic 1960s interiors

Search for the phrase ‘party at Frank Sinatra’s house’ on YouTube and you’ll be treated to footage of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan shaking their tail feathers in one of Palm Springs’ most fabled homes. The occasion for Paris and Lindsay’s...

Architecture / 26 Dec 2018

The architects who built Palm Springs: William Cody

Palm Springs is one of the global epicentres of tasteful big ‘m’ modernism, a sprawling desert city where the dreams of architecture’s new generation came to glorious fruition, usually unrestricted by budgets and the tiresome burden of inclement weather. It...

Architecture / 24 Dec 2018

The architects who built Palm Springs: William Pereira

The architecture and career of American modernist William Pereira (1909-85) has been long celebrated and well documented. After founding William L. Pereira & Associates in Los Angeles in 1958, Pereira went on to become widely recognised for a series of iconic buildings...

Architecture / 9 Dec 2018

The architects who built Palm Springs: Albert Frey

When you look at the low, long and linear forms of Albert Frey’s buildings, which appear modern, but also instantly at one with the arid landscape of the USA’s Coachella Valley, it is hard to believe that this founding father of...

Architecture / 5 Dec 2018

How Donald Wexler and William Krisel turned Palm Springs into a Hollywood retreat

Pat Rizzo and his Orchestra up the tempo and the dance floor swells with men in retro casuals and women with red lipstick and Mad Men hairdos. It’s the annual gala benefit at the Canyon Country Club, the big ticket...

Architecture / 2 Dec 2018

The architects who built Palm Springs: Hugh Kaptur

Few of the creatives who came to define Palm Springs’ particular brand of modernism actually came from the Coachella region. Hugh Kaptur, one of the Californian town’s most prolific architects, was no exception, hailing in fact from the cold expanses...

Art / 28 Jul 2018

Kate Ballis’ candy-coloured dreamscapes hit the sweet spot in Los Angeles

Kate Ballis’ otherworldly infrared photographs of Palm Springs first caught our eye last autumn when we met the artist in the desert resort city, where she was working on the next instalment of her series Infra Realism. The Melbourne-based photographer...

Architecture / 21 Mar 2018

Palm Springs pays homage to architect Herbert W Burns

This weekend the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation will pay homage to the work of Herbert W Burns, the self-taught architect whose iconic apartment hotels and residences have become part of the canon of desert modernism. In what promises to be...