Palm Springs - Oasis of Modernism in the Desert

Sunday, November 17, 2019
Palm Springs, California, United States
Most major resorts seem to be located either at the beach or near recreational opportunities in the mountains or near lakes. Palm Springs is a little different being located in the desert in one of the hottest places in the country during the summer months. The attraction here is similar to that of Arizona – warm sunny weather compared to almost anywhere else in the U.S. during the winter months and lots of golf courses. Like all of Southern California, though, being in any way attractive as a place to live, winter, or vacation, though, is entirely dependent on consumption of lots of water that comes from far away. The lush vegetation and green lawns and gold courses in the desert seem almost surreal, an ultimate human transformation of the natural landscape to appeal to our aesthetic sensibilities.
Palm Springs and the towns around it in the Coachella Valley are also known as the residences, I suspect only the winter residences, of celebrities.  I don’t seem to hear about it as much anymore, but I recall when I was younger reading or seeing things on TV about the homes of the rich and famous in the area – Gerald Ford, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Bob Hope and more. These people were important enough in making the area famous that each one of them has a major boulevard in the Coachella Valley named after them. I may be getting up there in age, but they are also all folks who were more famous to my parents’ generation than mine. Millennials and Zoomers are all probably like “Bob who?” and “You mean, Dinosaur?”
The other thing Palm Springs is especially famous for is as one of the biggest concentrations of classic Mid-Century Modern architecture anywhere in the world, a post-WWII style emphasizing sleek lines, horizontality, openness, and glass influenced by Bauhaus and International styles…and in my opinion to some degree by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie style.  While I find many of the famous and high-end examples of this style to have a impressive beauty in clean lines and creation of continuity between indoor and outdoor space through extensive use of glass, I’ve also seen some lesser examples of the style that used inferior materials that look cheap and dated. I knew someone who bought a house in the style in Denver about eight years or so ago who hoped to get it designated as a historically significant property to increase its resale value. I honestly thought it would have just made a great scrape-off.
Palm Springs has many of the highest quality examples of the style by the most famous architects, though, many of which are visually stunning, at least to the degree that you can see them, many being private homes largely obscured behind walls and shrubbery.  Unlike Beverly Hills, there’s no narrated bus tour of the homes of the stars or the famous houses, but the visitors center does offer maps of some of the most significant mid-century modern buildings in the area for individual exploration, included homes once owned by Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore.  
Downtown Palm Springs is long and narrow and mostly low rise except for one hotel, a mix of Spanish colonial and mid-century modern architecture containing lots of stores and galleries as well as restaurants and bars. It’s pleasant but in my view not too distinctive.  I suppose it might be different if I were into shopping and browsing through art galleries, but since I’m quite averse to shopping a quick wander up and down the strip, a cold Negra Modelo at a Mexican cantina, and two slices of pizza were enough of downtown for me before I went to the art museum.  And what’s that with that weird art installation of giant babies crawling around in a submerged field?
One of the leading Palm Springs attractions listed online is Moreton Botanic Gardens, located on the south side of town on the way to Indian Canyons.  I really like plants, but in contrast to The Living Desert with its extensive gardens representing different desert floral regions in North America and Africa, I found Moreton to be small and rather underwhelming. The plants are well labeled and there’s a good variety of native species represented by an individual specimen or two, but it’s not a major draw.
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