Mid-Century Modern Architecture

The most concentrated collection of 1940s–60s modernist architecture in the United States

Palm Springs has one of the finest concentrations of mid-century modern architecture anywhere in the world. During the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy Los Angelenos commissioned vacation homes from the leading architects of the day — Albert Frey, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, E. Stewart Williams, Donald Wexler — and the result is a city where the residential streets read as an open-air museum of American modernism.

The annual Modernism Week (held in February) offers architectural tours of normally private homes; the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation runs tours throughout the year. Even without a guided tour, driving the residential neighborhoods north of downtown — Las Palmas, Old Las Palmas, Little Tuscany — reveals remarkable houses at every turn. The Architecture and Design Center, operated by the Palm Springs Art Museum in the historic Santa Fe Federal Savings building downtown, covers the city's architectural heritage with permanent exhibits.

things to do architecture sight
A story
The Desert House designed by Richard Neutra for Edgar Kaufmann Sr. in 1946 became one of the most photographed houses of the 20th century. Kaufmann had previously commissioned Fallingwater from Frank Lloyd Wright. When Julius Shulman photographed the Palm Springs house in 1947, the images — with the San Jacinto Mountains framing the glass pavilion — defined the visual language of California modernism for a generation.