Welcome to Modernism Week
Each February, shortly before Valentine’s Day, Palm Springs’ streets fill with 150,000+ visitors from around the world, many strutting down Palm Canyon Drive in their stylish 1960s fashions and cruising the streets in vintage vehicles. Welcome to Modernism Week, the premier midcentury modern architectural festival!
For 11 glorious days, fans of all things midcentury modern– architecture, furnishings, fashion, cars, films, design, even vintage trailers–come together to celebrate and experience more than 450 home tours, talks, presentations, exhibitions, film screenings, artist studio visits, bus tours, workshops, mixology and cooking classes, book signings, parties and more. Modernism Week is all about education, preservation, sustainable modern living, and fun, of course.
A mecca for modernism aficionados, Palm Springs has the highest concentration of midcentury modern structures in the USA. Most were designed and built by the starchitects of the time, William Krisel, Walter White, John Lautner, Albert Frey, Joseph Eichler, Richard Neutra, Donald Wexler, and E. Stewart Williams among others.
What is Midcentury Modern?
Open plan living, a connection to nature with indoor/outdoor spaces, functionality, and the use of natural materials are the hallmarks of midcentury architecture and fit perfectly with the desert environment. Home tours like the Sunset Park Neighborhood Tour showcase these modernist pillars.
Home Tours
Sunset Park features an eclectic mix of homes in styles from atomic to late 1960s modern, built by architects including Hugh Kaptur, William Cody (both lived in the neighborhood as did Conrad Hilton and Huell Howser), Donald Wexler, Bernie Meiselman and others. Seven homes were on the tour. Their owners graciously welcomed visitors and shared what they had retained, refreshed, restored, or reimagined in their midcentury homes. These are real people’s homes but could easily have been show houses.
Each year Modernism Week hosts featured homes, designed by a local company. This year there were two: Designer Trina Turk’s Soleil House and The Marquee at Twin Palms with interior design by H3K. Howard and Kevin are extremely detailed oriented and sensitive to period touches. There’s Bosco in the kitchen cupboard and Pond’s cold cream on the vanity.
Double Decker Fun
Most homes in the Twin Palms neighborhood were designed by William Krisel and built by the Alexander Company, one of the biggest builders in Palm Springs. Alexander also built the upscale Las Palmas neighborhood, home to Dean Martin, Dinah Shore, Harold Robbins and Frank Sinatra, whose home was designed by E. Stewart Williams.
Climb aboard Modernism Week’s double decker buses for a look at the exteriors of these fabulous homes on one of the enormously popular architectural tours. Elvis Presley’s Honeymoon house (a great example of Swiss Miss style), the iconic Palm Springs Tram station designed by Albert Frey and Robson Chambers, the Kaufmann House by Neutra, Frank Sinatra’s Twin Palms estate, plus other celebrity residences and notable commercial buildings are on the tours.
Don’t Miss the Movies
Modernism Week debuted several films this year. Googie, is award-winning filmmaker Jake Gorst’s marvelous documentary about the eponymous architectural style. Car culture created the need for the giant neon signs, bold colors and fonts, and space age designs that are the hallmarks of Googie. Designed to get customers’ attention and out of their automobiles, it’s the wild and wacky side of midcentury modern and seen most often in coffee shops, restaurants, and motels. Sadly, many of these historic gems are disappearing just as their cultural significance is finally being appreciated.
Another highlight was cinematographer Alan Kraemer’s documentary, Arthur Elrod: Desert Cool, based on the book Arthur Elrod: Desert Modern Design by Adele Cygelman, who also directed. The film opens with a scene from Diamonds Are Forever starring Sean Connery as James Bond, shot in the spectacular home Elrod designed for himself with architect John Lautner. The documentary captures the fascinating life, career, and legacy of the man credited with creating modern desert design for clients like Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball, Walt and Lillian Disney, and Hoagy Carmichael.
A short film about the Aluminaire House, designed by Albert Frey in 1931, also screened at the festival. The film traces the history of the all-metal house from exciting architectural case study to ruin, and its remarkable restoration. The Aluminaire House is now a permanent exhibition at the Palm Springs Art Museum and on display next door. Due to ADA and fire safety regulations visitors can only admire the exterior of the midcentury marvel. The interiors were shown in the film.
Midcentury Magnificence
A visit to Sunnylands, the estate built by media tycoon and ambassador to the Court of St. James, Walter Annenberg, and his wife Leonore (also an ambassador and philanthropist) is one of Modernism Week’s highlights. The home has hosted eight presidents, Frank Sinatra’s wedding, and the only State dinner outside of the White House, which was held during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. There are separate tours for the home and the grounds, but the visitor center and gardens are open to all and free of charge.
Garden Tours
The desert faced gale force winds and pelting rain the night before this year’s garden tour, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of visitors or the homeowners who shared their gardens, though a fallen tree forced one garden from the roster. There was art, whimsy, drought-conscience plantings, and plenty of color on display around sparkling swimming pools at gardens in numerous Palm Springs neighborhoods. One featured a wall of plates. In the center was one made for the owner’s grandfather, an Amsterdam taxi driver, marking the cab company’s 50th anniversary. The year was 1931, the same date his Spanish colonial was built.
Premier Presentations
There is an enormous variety of presentations at Modernism Week focusing on history, culture, art, design and architecture. University professors, authors, adult children of notable designers, americana experts, and others with a passion for their midcentury subjects took the stage at the Palm Springs Museum of Art’s Annenberg Theater and the CAMP (Community and Meeting Place) theater at the festival’s Hyatt headquarters. We learned about the career trajectory of wartime émigré Leopold Fischer from European public housing architect to LA home designer, the enduring work of Italian modernist Gio Ponte, what growing up in the home of artists Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman was like, celebrated Route 66’s 100th birthday, and took a Great American Retro Roadtrip with the inimitable Charles Phoenix. Some lectures are free or low cost, but all are fascinating and most sell-out.
Art is Everywhere
The Palm Springs area boasts six design districts, home to the studios of ceramicists, sculptors, painters, photographers and mixed media artists. Modernism Week provided the opportunity to visit many of these on the festival’s final Saturday. It wasn’t all pools and palm trees; there are artists working through combat-induced PTSD, environmentalists using art to make their case, a photographer who has transformed his work into photomosaics showcasing remote parts of CA and the people who dwell there, the silk-screening son of a well-known architect, and others who have created beauty for us to simply admire.
Coming Soon
Modernism Week also hosts a four-day mini festival, October 15-18. Tickets for Modernism Week 2027, February 11-21, go on sale November 1, 2026, modernismweek.com.
Story and photos by Jeanne Neylon Decker
Featured Photo: Welcome to Modernism Week ©Jeanne Neylon Decker
