Desert Dreamers 7: The Architects

PALM SPRINGS LIFE FEBRUARY 2018 Albert Frey began his career studying Beaux Arts design in Zurich before making a 
radical shift to modernism, working as one of just two full-time employees for 
Le Corbusier in Paris. Most young architects would have been content under the great Le Corbusier’s wing, but an extended visit to New…

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Prefab gem ‘Aluminaire House’ is finally moving to Palm Springs

CURBED NATIONAL SEPTEMBER 02, 2017 When Aluminaire leaves storage and completes the some 2,700-mile trip to Palm Springs, the truck containing the structure will be on show as part of Palm Springs Modernism Week, the SoCal desert paradise’s annual toast to modernist architecture. There, it will be right at home, with plenty of Albert Frey…

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Wallpaper Letters From Palm Springs: The Latest Projects from the Mid-Century Modern Mecca

WALLPAPER MAGAZINE AUGUST 11, 2017 Palm Springs is a city that performs a delicate dance between preservation and development in the midst of a mid-century architectural wonderland. It’s the kind of town where design-savvy residents are also activists who spring to the defense of endangered buildings. Aluminaire, originally designed for the Allied Arts and Industry…

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Westward Ho: The Aluminaire House Finds a Home

MODERN MAGAZINE AUGUST 09, 2017 After decades of nomadic existence, the 1931 Aluminaire House, a pioneering example of modern prefabricated construction, has finally found a permanent home in Palm Springs, California. Since its founding in 2006, Modernism Week has become a major draw, bringing visitors to Palm Springs. The Aluminaire House will add similar luster…

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Tango Americano

PALM SPRINGS LIFE AUGUST 2017 The museum’s Architecture and Design Center asserts a fresh storyline for modernism enthusiasts and an overdue appreciation for the iconic Palm Springs architect Albert Frey. Four houses provide a window into Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi: A Search for Living Architecture (through Jan. 7, 2018): the glass houses the…

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1930s modernist Aluminaire House moves cross-country to Palm Springs

DEZEEN WORLDWIDE AUGUST 2, 2017 The structure is being transported in a tractor-trailer, with an exterior covered with graphics of the home. The truck will be on view during Palm Springs Modernism Week, which runs from 16 to 26 February 2017. Once a new park is completed in downtown Palm Springs later this year, the…

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Palm Springs Wants to Adopt NY’s All-Metal Modernist House

THE DESERT SUN JULY 21, 2017 The park described as Palm Springs’ “front lawn” is one step closer to opening, having passed through a second public workshop where plans for the community space were scrutinized and praised by the city council and residents. Across Main Street, a smaller and detached part of the park will…

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Big Ideas Revealed to City Council for Downtown Palm Springs Park

THE DESERT SUN MAY 13, 2017 Some of the essential ingredients officials have said the park should contain include, permanent public restrooms, shade structures, sites to locate a piece of large public art such as the Aluminaire House, an Albert Frey designed demonstration project from the early 1930s. The Aluminaire House arrived in Palm Springs…

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Aluminaire House by Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher Travels Cross-Country to Palm Springs

INTERIOR DESIGN MAGAZINE APRIL 10, 2017 Promoted as the first all-metal prefab house in the U.S., Aluminaire debuted in 1931. It was a case study by Albert Frey, fresh out of Le Corbusier’s studio, and fellow architect A. Lawrence Kocher, then Architectural Record’s managing editor. Soon, Aluminaire will open to the public. The site will…

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House Gets Its Just Desert

EICHLER NETWORK MARCH 17, 2017 A case can be made that, as much as anyone this side of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, Albert Frey brought Mid-Century Modern to America and California. The Palm Springs community has known this for a while, and continues to celebrate its connection to the foremost Desert Modernist as…

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