July 25, 2011/Palm Springs /by Mid-Century Mike

The Understated Modernism of Don Wexler

This is last in the trilogy of posts on my trip to Palm Springs. (You can read the first two posts here and here. I am devoting this post solely to the work of Donald Wexler, FAIA, who my wife and I had the pleasure of meeting when we were in Palm Springs during Modernism Week.

Mr. Wexler, who is 85, is quite simply put, a rock star without the attitude. His work was feted throughout Modernism Week with the exhibit Steel and Shade: The Architecture of Don Wexler at the Palm Spring Art Museum and the showing of the file, Journeyman Architect: The Life and Work of Donald Wexler (Speaking of the movie, Modern Richmond is holding a showing of the film at the Virginia Architecture Center on Wednesday at 7 p.m.)

Touring around Palm Springs with Mr. Wexler and his family was an honor.

He attended many of the other Modernism Week events, spoke on a panel and even took one of three-hour architecture tours of the city that he helped build and define. (Luckily, I picked the tour he was on.)

Wexler, who grew up in Minnesota, served in the Navy during World War II. Once his service was complete, he studied architecture at the University of Minnesota after taking an aptitude test saying he would be good at it; he was thinking of career in engineering. The test was right. After he graduated, he left Minnesota at 24 and snagged an apprenticeship with none other than Richard Neutra. He then worked for Palms Springs master William Cody before launching his own firm with Ric Harrison, who met in Cody’s office. They worked together from 1952 until 1961, when they amicably parted ways to start their own firms. After focusing on residential projects earlier in his career (think innovative Steel Houses), Wexler turned to more commercial and government projects, including schools and the beautiful and soaring Palm Springs International Airport.

“Wexler brings another dimension to his work: an understated but assured sense of aesthetics,” Michael Stern and Alan Hess write in Julius Shulman: Palm Springs. “His buildings have a humane sense of space, a refined sense of proportion, a sureness about details that reflect the hand of an excellent architect. His buildings do not share the expressionist energy of Lautner’s Elrod House, but he also has a sense of drama in a flaring, zigzagging roofline of a house, or the swept back lines of an airport roof.”

Enough with the words. See for yourself.

Professional Park. Wexler designed the sleek offices in 1964. His own office is pictured above.

Some cool architecture was created behind that door.

This office park was actually designed to feel like you are in a park.

Entry to the former Spa Bath House by Cody, Wexler and Harrison. While the colonnade remains, much has been altered.

Royal Hawaiin Estates by Harrison and Wexler, 1960.

Custom house by Wexler on Lilliana Drive.

Here's another custom home on Tamarisk Road.

The Dinah Shore House. Sold for nearly $5 million earlier this year.

Here are some shots of the seven Steel Houses (1962). The homes were designed by Wexler and Harrison and built by George Alexander.

Raymond Cree Junior High School, 1969.

Welmas Building

Merrill Lynch Building, 1971

Palm Springs International Airport, 1966.

July 22, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Post on Prefabs, Lost River Modern

The Post’s Real Estate section has a story out on modern prefabs, including Modern Capital Sponsor Lost River Modern. The article gives a good overview of story behind how Chris Brown and Sarah Johnson built their Res4 vacation retreat/rental home on 30 acres in West Virginia. “The cabin is part of a mini-slice of the prefab world: stylish, higher-end houses designed by architects interested in homes that are built in a way that’s more labor and energy efficient and less wasteful than site-built houses,” the story says. Here’s a post on my family’s visit. If you want to get a taste of what living in a prefab is like, you can book your visit here.

July 19, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Modern Constructs Ad

July 19, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Home Anthology Ad

July 19, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Lost River Modern Ad

July 19, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Modern Mobler Ad

July 19, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Daniel Donnelly Ad

July 12, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

The Unbuilt Modernism of Washington

What could have been? This is the question an upcoming (November 2011) National Building Museum exhibition (entitled “Unbuilt Washington”) will explore as it looks back at some of the designs for buildings, bridges and monuments that were never built in Washington. Some of the these designs also happen to be by some of the country’s leading modern architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Durrell Stone, Chloethiel Woodard Smith and Kevin Roche. I came across one of these–a proposed aquarium by Roche in collaboration with the Eames Office–several years ago so I am excited to learn more about it along with the other projects. Can you imagine an aquarium on Haines Point in East Potomac Park designed by proteges of Eero Saarinen (Roche and John Dinkeloo continued Saarinen’s practice) and Ray and Charles Eames. Unfortunately, it did not happen. “In 1962 Congress approved construction of the National Fisheries Center and Aquarium for East Potomac Park,” the Washington Business Journal writes. “Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC designed the project, slated to cost $10 million at the time and include a 60-foot greenhouse for living ecologies. The project fell victim to the economic and political turmoil of the time. The aquarium today makes its home in the Herbert Hoover Department of Commerce headquarters.”

Another interesting part of the aquarium story is that Smith, who was the leading force in the redevelopment of Southwest DC, designed the Channel Waterfront Bridge. The bridge was to link the Southwest waterfront to West Potomac Park and the aquarium. The plan included interior and exterior pedestrian walkways and more than 100 shops and restaurants. The design was inspired by the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy. The currently planned redevelopment of the Southwest waterfront is seeking to bring some of these ideas to fruition.

You can see the designs by these and other architects in this great slideshow produced by the Washington Business Journal. You can read a story about the expected exhibit by G. Martin Moeller Jr., senior vice president and curator at the museum.

July 7, 2011/Mid-Century Modern /by Mid-Century Mike

Building Museum Examines Prairie School, The Glass Box

Here are a couple upcoming lectures at the National Building Museum that may be of interest. As part of its annual Three Movements in Architecture series, the museum will hold a session on July 16 on the Prairie School of Frank Lloyd Wright. David Bagnall, director of interpretation for Sites and Collections at the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, Oak Park, Illinois, will discuss the Prairie School phenomenon through the work of Wright and his contemporaries. On July 23, G. Martin Moeller, Jr., the museum’s senior vice president and curator, will looks at the resurgence of The Glass Box in contemporary architecture and how glass curtain walls can be used in a greener way than in the past.

July 1, 2011/Preservation /by Mid-Century Mike

Mid-Century Manhattan: Manufacturers Trust Interior Gutted

The interior of the landmarked Manufacturers Honover Trust building has been gutted.

So much for preserving the1954 Manufacturers Hanover Trust Building on 5th Avenue by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Curbed New York reported this week on the gutting of the interior of the landmark modernist building by Gordon Bunshaft. Despite the fact that the the interior of the building was landmarked, Joe Fresh, the Canadian shmata retailer, was given permission to “renovate” the interior. I snapped the above picture a couple of weeks ago and wondered why the interior was ripped apart. I thought it was protected. Sadly not.

Month: July 2011