Mid-Century Modern in Palm Springs

Palm Springs is a Mecca if you love mid-century modern architecture. Municipal and commercial business as well as home owners embraced the modernist style. Icon architects like Neutra built master pieces in Palm Springs and the surrounding cities. There is a week during the winter, which is Palm Springs' busy season, dedicated to everything mid-century modern.

One of the first things one passes on highway 111, the route into town, is the Welcome Center. Built originally as a gas station the building now stands as a welcoming beacon to modernists. We stopped into the Welcome Center where there is an entire section of the room dedicated to modernism. We purchased a map detailing the locales of some of the masterpieces. The commercial and municipal sites on the map are mainly preserved and well maintained. Many of the private residences are hard to see as most are behind walls and hedges. We found many residences not on the map that were fantastic modern houses and much easier to see from the road. Just driving around in the residential neighborhoods is a modernist's delight.

Re-use and re-purposing is play a big part of modern Palm Springs. In an effort to safe the modernist buildings from the wreckers ball Palm Springs has embraced saving the buildings but filling them with different businesses. The Welcome Center is one example. Another one time gas station is now a KFC. On almost any corner one can find a quirky mid-century modern landmark.