Town & Country Center...The Saga Continues

Charles Tanner’s Desert Inn; Richard Neutra’s Maslon Residence; Wurdeman & Becket’s Bullock’s Department Store; A Quincy Jones & Paul R. Williams’ Town & Country Center; all, except one are buildings demolished in the name of efficiency and progress that were said to have outlived their useful purpose, deemed to be impractical and expensive to maintain; their loss continues to haunt the Valley.
Only the Town & Country Center still stands pending demolition for a huge retail development indistinguishable from similar developments elsewhere. This demolition is presented as absolutely essential to the future health, happiness and economic well-being of Palm Springs. A lengthy list of residents, architectural historians and other experts have urged the preservation of this historic mixed-use complex, but the Palm Springs City Council has turned them down, and is in the process of executing a Joint Development Agreement with the building’s owner that will ensure its demolition.
One might think that the Town & Country Center does not belong in this august company. Its current willfully dilapidated condition mutes its appearance. It is precisely like the Desert Inn and the others, in that it is a great work about to be destroyed before it can to be fully appreciated while the functional justification for its existence continues to be ignored. With its impossibly elegant horizontal lines, its surprisingly voluptuous curves, and its generous and unique open space, it embodies the spirit of the 1940s. Yet it faces the same fate as the Desert Inn and the others, lost long ago when they were considered out of fashion.
The Town & Country Center is not just an isolated building. It is part of a larger context of vacant sites on its block that provide a unique opportunity for a development that centers on its historic open courtyard. While the complex may need some upgrades, the extent of which is often exaggerated, its restoration and improvement is still a hard sell when it is owned by an obstinate developer hell-bent on its demolition, regardless of any cogent rationale. Some locals, frustrated by the owner’s contribution to downtown’s blight may look at the building and despair. But then, many had the same reaction when the Desert Inn was demolished; had it survived, today it would the downtown’s jewel, comparing favorably to the Beverly Hills Hotel, or Riverside’s Mission Inn, each of which serves as anchors of urban vitality.
In theory, the local system of listed buildings works to protect buildings over 50 years old that are of historic and architectural interest, as well as younger buildings of exceptional quality and under threat. The procedure is that Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board makes recommendations and the City Council accepts or rejects them. The false argument that revitalization of downtown somehow hinges of the demolition of this building and its replacement with a street lined with architecturally banal shops has prevailed with our decision-makers. In Palm Springs, the listing system often sidesteps difficult decisions – two recent designations - the front façade of the Palm Springs Airport and the upper story of the Oasis Commercial building - amply attest to that sad reality. One council member has declared his hostility to the protection of any building lacking owner support; he misses the point that it is the significant buildings whose owners object to designation are those most in need of protection. The loss of the Town and Country Center will continue the process of eradicating the town’s history, resulting in the disappearance of a vital period in Palm Springs’ architectural history. With time, Palm Springs’ staple of cultural tourism will also diminish with loss of important buildings like this one.
One has to also question the town’s commitment to sustainability considering the environmental loss of both the energy and the materials that went into the building’s original construction, which in the current proposal will be purchased again for the new buildings while the historic building’s remains will be sent to landfill.
Time is running out for this building. To urge the saving and restoration of this important structure risks offending some downtown business interests, as well as those of the building’s millionaire owner and his powerful friends at the Palm Springs Art Museum and the City Council. The merit of restoration could result in a thoughtful overall plan that helps to repair Palm Springs torn urban fabric, rather than throwing it all out, and with it a unique portion of the town’s heritage. Protection of historic properties is, and has always been, about asserting the intrinsic value of a place’s roots over immediate financial gain. As an object lesson, look no further than the decisions that resulted in the demolition of the Desert Inn and the construction of the Desert Fashion Plaza in the first place. At the risk of repeating a cliché, the City Council would be well-advised to heed the Spanish philosopher George Santayana’s words: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

One more and I'll stop with the Folded Plates

These two images are also Palmer & Krisel from 1961. They were built in Las Vegas in the Paradise Palms tract. If anybody's going up that way, I'd love to know if they survive...

Folded Plate Roofs Redux

MORE FOLDED PLATES…


I had an interesting and enlightening conversation with Bill Krisel recently, during which I encouraged him to take a glimpse at my Blog. He responded to the posting of the history of the folded plate roof in Palm Springs with some new information. Turns out the Alexander Construction Company built at least four Palmer & Krisel houses with folded plate roofs in 1956 (finished in 1957), two of which I have been to locate in Vista Las Palmas: 803 Monte Vista and 1102 Rose Avenue. Although they are hard to see from the street, they’re definitely there, and still intact, making them the oldest folded plate roofs in Palm Springs. The firm also designed some houses with barrel-vault entry canopies. The best example of this style that I could find is located at 891 Monte Vista, and although the barrel vaults survive, it looks like the building has been substantially altered from its original design.

Krisel also recalled his being influenced by Marcel Breuer’s MoMA house (see earlier posting); its long butterfly roof was the inspiration for his first ‘butterfly’ house, the Adolphe Stelzer Residence of 1950 in Brentwood. The Stelzers so loved their home that they bought a smaller second home by Krisel in Twin Palms. Sadly, the Brentwood home was replaced in 1990 by a 12,000 sq. ft. Tudor.

I also recalled seeing an early, undated Hugh Kaptur design study for Tony Curtis’ Caballeros Tennis Club. Although it was never built, it shows how popular the folded plate idea was in those years.

Forgotten Wexler & Harrison Rediscovered

Legendary local architect Donald Wexler confirmed recently that this sleek, early (for Palm Springs) International Style building was produced by his firm in their early years. Wexler & Harrison briefly maintained offices upstairs in the A. Quincy Jones / Paul R. Williams-designed Town & Country Center complex. They were commissioned by the building’s original owners to create a new office building fro E. F. Hutton within the compound, just off the walkway that leads to the courtyard. The result was this refined, minimalist structure with green terrazzo flooring throughout and a simple, open interior space. Its grey terrazzo tile façade could use some polishing, and through the magic of Photoshop, I have restored the long gone awning fabric, but the formalist purity of the building survives largely unaltered. After a few years, E. F. Hutton relocated to a Hugh Kaptur building on Tahquitz Canyon Way. This handsome structure remains vacant and unprotected. Ironically, during a time when the city celebrates Don Wexler’s contributions to the local architectural scene through an exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum, spokesman for the Museum recently endorsed the current Desert Fashion Plaza Development Plan, which would result in the demolition of this fine example of Wexler & Harrison‘s work.

Folded Plate Roofs

According to C. B. Wilby in his book Concrete Folded Plate Roofs, Folded plates are sometimes called hipped plates, and in Germany “Faltwerke”. The principle was first used in Germany by a structural engineer named Ehlers in 1924, to cover large coal bunkers. Folded plate roofs allow large spans, clean lines and they are aesthetically pleasing to many architects.

In the 1960s, folded plates became less structural in nature, and are now usually considered mid-century decoration. Early examples illustrated here are Morris Lapidus’ 1960 decorative folded plate element used for a street canopy in Miami. In 1966, a similar canopy was built at Villa Roma in Palm Springs. Other early examples include Wexler & Harrison’s 1962 steel house and Val Powelson’s 1960 Sunbow House in LA. Two local versions by Santa Barbara architect Barry Berkus are the Park Imperial South and Merito Manor complexes from 1960 and 1961 respectively.

Not as well-known, but quite interesting in its own right is the Animal Medical Hospital (1960, Robert Ricciardi) at 606 South Oleander Road that features a folded plate roof on a circular floor plan.

A few years ago, Dink’s Restaurant & Lounge on North Palm Canyon was built new from the ground up. Attempting to recall the town’s Mid-century Modernism, the building unresolved and overly busy design features a section of folded plates; unclear on the concept…they appear to be supported by beams….go figure.

The last image is from the gallery entrance to the Don Wexler, Steel and Shade exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum. It is a replica of the roof on Wexler & Harrison’s 300 Molino Road steel house. On the whole, the Wexler & Harrison design seems the most elegant.

More Butterflys

These images, from "Brazil Builds" published in 1943 show an even earlier "Buttrefly" Roof. Its so amazing that here in Palm Springs we seem to have "invented" Mid-century Modernism...turns out Niemeyer was waaaay ahead of us...can't help but wonder how those early modernist buildings are faring these days. I was in Rio a few years ago and saw Corbu/Niemeyer's Ministry of Education. It still looks brand new.

PS: Thanks to the "Doug Hudson Lending Library" for "Brazil Builds.'

The First Butterfly Roof?

Largely due to the work of Palmer & Krisel and Wexler & Harrison there is a sense that the Butterfly Roof was invented here. Not true, as evidence. check out this 1949 demonstration house in the garden at MoMA. It was designed by Marcel Breuer.