Piece by piece, iconic Aluminaire House rising outside Palm Springs Art Museum
The aluminum and steel materials of the house are part of why it’s so historically significant. Still, it also created a challenge for the team of designers and engineers working on the project.
For most visitors to Palm Springs, “mid-century modernism” is just one of many keywords used to look for kitschy short-term rentals. It conjures images of flat roofs, brightly colored doors, and Instagram-worthy Breezeblocks.
Soon, though, locals and tourists alike will have the chance to learn the meaning and philosophy behind modernism thanks to the Palm Springs Art Museum’s acquisition of the Aluminaire House.
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At first glance, it seems like there’s nothing in common between the stark, all-metal house and the familiar Palm Springs mid-century modern homes one sees from a double-decker bus.
However, the Aluminaire House shows the evolution of one of the most influential architects and is a crucial link to the very beginnings of modernism in the United States.
The prototype home, designed by Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher, was unveiled at an exhibit in New York in 1931 and changed hands several times before falling into disrepair. The Aluminaire House Foundation rescued the building and donated it to the Palm Springs Art Museum.
Three years after the 1931 exhibition, Frey was commissioned to design the first of many buildings in Palm Springs.
The architect then moved to the city and had a hand in designing some of the most iconic structures in the city, including the Palm Springs City Hall and the gas station turned landmark that is the Palm Springs Visitor’s Center.
One of Frey’s residences, Frey House II, is also owned by the Palm Springs Art Museum, providing a neat bookend that illustrates the beginning and later eras of Frey’s career.
Museum leaders knew the house was an essential work for their collection, and quickly started a campaign in January this year to raise $2.6 million for the relocation. According to the most recent update, they’ve secured $2.3 million.
The dismantled house has been in storage for years, and putting it back together is not as simple as assembling a Lego house.
Because the house is too small to accommodate an elevator and other ADA accommodations, the building will not be open to the public. Despite that, there is plenty of retrofitting that needs to be done.
“It is a challenge to put an all-metal box in the sun in Palm Springs,” said Leo Marmol, a trustee on the board of the Palm Springs Art Museum, during a question and answer session about the house in July.
The aluminum and steel materials of the house are part of why it’s so historically significant. Still, it also created a challenge for the team of designers and engineers working on the project.
Marmol said the aluminum skin of the building had to be separated from the structure’s metal so there’s no direct transmission of sunlight inside the building.
They also added an air conditioning system to keep the building from heat damage. The museum will also add some dim theatrical lighting to the interior and exterior lighting.
Even though visitors won’t be able to walk into the Aluminaire House, they may be able to experience the interior differently. The museum hopes to raise an extra $200,000 for a permanent virtual reality exhibit to allow museum-goers to step inside a virtual recreation of the house’s interior.
Combining modern technology with architecture was precisely the inspiration behind the Aluminaire House when it was designed almost a century ago.
According to Marmol, Frey and Kocher chose the futuristic metal materials to demonstrate how houses could one day be produced using prefabricated materials. It was about cost-efficient housing for the middle class, Marmol said.
Museum CEO Adam Lerner added that the idea behind the house was to show that the American industrial force can be used to create houses that are not just well designed but can be distributed in a way accessible to everybody.
“That [idea] is fundamental to modernism, which we really don’t see on a regular basis here in Palm Springs,” Lerner said. “We enjoy modernism as a surface phenomenon of design and style, not as a body of ideas.”
The exhibition will be completed in January, just in time for Modernism Week in February.
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