Preserving the Optimism of Mid-Century Modern Design

Palm Springs is at a crossroads. As the 20th century coasts to a close, the small resort town is coming under increased scrutiny about how it is caring for its cache of modern architecture.

The revival of Modernism as the predominant style is evident everywhere--TV commercials, print ads, magazines (from fashion to shelter), all sport icons of mid-century architecture and design. And those seeking ground zero can look 110 miles east of Los Angeles--to Palm Springs. The stock of intact modern architecture there is staggering, the largest percentage per capita of modern residential architecture in the world. Important work of all the West Coast greats fills the town: buildings by Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, John Lautner, Quincy Jones and, of course, Palm Springs’ own Albert Frey, the Swiss emigre whose pioneering work dominates the area.

Yet, the enemy lies within the Frey-designed City Hall. Local officials seem oblivious--or, at best, confused--by all the attention. There are only six postwar structures granted Class One designation by the city’s preservation code, the sole designation preventing demolition or exterior alterations. This designation was extended to those buildings only when current owners initiated and then accepted it. God forbid the city recognize the inherent worth of a design if its owner objects.

The talk of the town remains last year’s intense battle over Frey’s most expressive creation: his 1963 Tramway Gas Station, an ingenious engineering of a hyperbolic paraboloid. The station sits at the town’s northern edge, welcoming visitors into Palm Springs. The fight to save it from demolition offered important insights into how the city regarded not only its architectural legacy but also the accomplishments of its citizens. Remember, Frey is alive and well at age 94, living in the small glass house he built for himself.

A leading developer vehemently had opposed preservation of the gas station, calling it an “eyesore.” He turned the controversy into a property-rights issue (the standard preservation opposition) and, with the help of a like-minded City Council member, overturned the station’s Class One designation. Now the building sits, abandoned, devoid of any official protection. This was a key case, and the city choked. Intimidated by a vocal minority, the council rejected pleas by qualified architects, preservationists, scholars and concerned locals.

Palm Springs needs to move quickly before it is too late. The town, long submerged in the morass of a real-estate slump, is now blooming with interest. With the economy on the upswing, the danger of unwise development is imminent. It is precisely the time to evaluate the architectural trove that remains. This may entail enlisting help from out-of-town professionals, a notion frowned on by an insecure local preservation opposition core. But already the streamlined Art Moderne Bullocks-Wilshire department store in the middle of town has been torn down. If allowed to be steadily denuded and bastardized, the town will become a ghost-scape of lamentations, sad memories of the intellectual optimism that was modern architecture of the mid-20th century.

Consider Miami. Remember the boarded-up rows of Art Deco buildings in Miami Beach? These were also considered eyesores, ripe for the scrap heap. But a diligent few managed to stave off the wrecking ball long enough for the public’s appreciation of the style to come around. That is exactly where Palm Springs is now. Historically, there is always the “appreciation time gap” between the original popularity of an architectural style, its demise and--if it is, on reassessment, worthy--its resurrection. The general public is only now starting to embrace the idiom of the modernists. How ironic, then, that this emasculation of modernity is currently sweeping through Palm Springs.

Perhaps more than any other style, modernism is fragile. It doesn’t take much more than a coat of paint over the intended exposed concrete blocks of Frey’s work to ruin the integrity, or the wrong door frame to throw the scale of a house off kilter. Just this year, a contractor convinced the city a wide copper headband would “look nice” crowning Frey’s City Council chambers building.

You can’t imagine the French Quarter design police allowing a Santa Fe-style stucco arch on a home there. Is it any different from attaching it to a modern house in Palm Springs? Is the modern style less worthy? That seems to be the message: There are entire neighborhoods of ‘60s Modern houses by the developer Robert Alexander that are just as important as the Craftsman bungalow clusters in Pasadena. Yet, the city is issuing building permits allowing them to be modified with tile roofs and Mediterranean arches.

If profit is the driving force or an increased tax base the goal, can’t the city see the profit from having an attractive and unique design angle to market? What other town of 40,000 can boast such an exuberant display of both Spanish Revival and Modernism within its limits? To gain respect as a municipality, a city must cherish its past.

Ask a cross section of Americans to name the most beautiful cities to visit in the United States. A short list would surely include San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe, New Orleans and Charleston, S.C. The one thing all these towns have in common is strict historic and architectural preservation codes. They realized not only the uniqueness and worth of their townscape, but also its marketability.

The New Yorker magazine recently compared Palm Springs to Williamsburg, Va., and Brooklyn Heights, asserting that all are important representations of America at a specific point in time. Like no other town in the nation, Palm Springs expresses through its modern architecture the dreams and ideals of both the designers and residents of a particular period in American history, the mid-century mark. This example is insightful and precious. There is no doubt appreciation of this relatively recent time will grow, but will Palm Springs’ prime examples survive long enough to be understood?