Palm Springs Art Museum recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. Founded in 1938, the museum had a host of different locations until 1976, when founding architect E. Stewart Williams’s design came to fruition. The iconic mid-century modern architect expanded on it still in 1996, giving way to the galleries that hold major collections of modern and contemporary art, photography, glass, and Native American and Western art.
With Palm Springs being lauded as having the world’s greatest concentration per capita of mid-century modern architecture, it was only fitting the museum increased its commitment to design with its Architecture and Design Centre, opened last fall. Originally home to Santa Fe Federal Savings & Loan, the 13,000 square-foot glass and steel modernist structure underwent a multi-million dollar restoration by Los Angeles–based architecture firm Marmol Radziner. The third campus of the Palm Springs Art Museum (there is also the Galen branch in Palm Desert), the Architecture and Design Centre is a free-standing facility situated in the revitalized south end of town, dedicated to all things architecture and design. Fittingly, the museum’s inaugural exhibition paid tribute to Williams.
Photos by Joshua McVeity.
