New home for Albert Frey’s Aluminaire house revealed at Palm Springs Modernism Week

Albert Frey's Aluminaire house in Palm Springs
As part of Modernism Week 2018, of a full-size graphic display of Aluminaire house will be unveiled.
(Image credit: Jenosale)

A year ago, a flatbed truck brought the contents of Albert Frey’s famous pre-fab Aluminaire house from a warehouse in New York, to a vacant lot in Palm Springs for a special ceremony marking its arrival (complete with the mayor and assorted archiphiles and patrons.)

One year later, Modernism Week will host the unveiling of a full-size graphic display of the house – originally designed for the 1931 Allied Arts and Industry and Architectural League Exhibition in New York – that will reveal the next step for the well-travelled modernist gem.

From the mountainous outpost of the 1964 Frey House II that gazes over a city in flux, you can see the new seven-storey Kimpton Hotel and retail development where an adjacent soon-to-be completed park will become the Aluminaire’s new home.

Aluminaire House

(Image credit: Michael Schwarting)

Aluminaire house installed at its former location.

More information about the park, designed by Mark Rios and Nate Cormier of Rios Clementi Hale Studios, as well as the exact site for the reassembled steel and aluminium house slated for installation in 2020, will be shared at the Palm Springs Art Museum, on 23 February 2018. This will be followed by a discussion with architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani, patrons and saviours of the Aluminaire for the last two-and-a-half decades, followed by a fundraiser for the once homeless house.

The three-storey aluminium and steel home, was assembled in just 10 days and co-designed by A. Lawrence Kocher, the managing editor of Architectural Record, and a 28-year-old Frey, who had recently emigrated to America after working for Le Corbusier. The home was intended to be an example of the possibilities for mass-produced affordable housing using inexpensive materials and enjoyed 100,000 visitors during the one-week exhibit.

As the first all metal pre-fabricated house in the US, and one that brought together the concepts of mass production and high density community planning, it galvanised a new American architectural movement, and was featured in the first exhibition of architecture in 1932 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Aluminaire sketch by Albert Frey


(Image credit: Albert Frey)

A sketch of Aluminaire house by Albert Frey

After the exhibition, architect Wallace Harrison acquired it for his estate in Huntington, Long Island, where it was relocated several times. It was narrowly saved from demolition in the late 1980s by Schwarting and Campani who had it donated to the New York Institute of Technology on Long Island, where it was restored and reassembled. When the campus closed in 2013, it ended up in storage in a shipping container in New York.

Several years later when Schwarting and Campani presented on Aluminaire at Modernism Week, their talk inspired creation of the California chapter of the non-profit Aluminaire House Foundation dedicated to raising funds to bring the house to Palm Springs.

It’s been a long haul for the nomadic Aluminaire, but it seems to have found a permanent home in Palm Springs, where its architect Albert Frey honed his unique desert modernism and left a lasting legacy (including the city hall). Now the 1931 classic will join its younger siblings in a happy architectural family reunion.

A new park in Palm Springs designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios

Designs for Palm Springs’ new park designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios

(Image credit: Rios Clementi)

CGI of the new Palm Springs park designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios

The exact site for the reassembled steel and aluminium house slated for installation in 2020 will be revealed during Palm Springs Modernism Week

(Image credit: Rios Clementi)

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Modernism Week website

TOPICS
Read more
Twin Palms Guided Walking Tour Robert-Alexander-Family part of palm springs modernism week 2025
Palm Springs Modernism Week 2025: let the desert architecture party begin
Albert Frey House l a.k.a. Frey I with AlbertFrey Seated, Albert Frey, 1940. Photographer Unknown. part of the palm springs school
Take a deep dive into The Palm Springs School ahead of the region’s Modernism Week
Edith Farnsworth House Farnsworth House
The three lives of the Edith Farnsworth House: now, a modernist architecture icon open to all
rancho mirage house showcasing low lying, modernist architecture with lots of desert planting and outdoor areas
Bask in the sun with this modernist home in the Palm Springs Desert
pan wogenscky house in france, a brutalist box with a red wall in our series on the legacy of modernism
How to protect our modernist legacy
L House by Steven Holl, a furniture gallerist's dream and sculptural timber composition both internally and externally
Step inside this furniture gallerist's live-work space by Steven Holl in upstate New York
Latest in Residential
riverrock frank lloyd wright house
Frank Lloyd Wright’s last house has finally been built – and you can stay there
Severance scene
The Eagan house from 'Severance' is available to rent
Costa Navarino Southward house
A Costa Navarino house peeks out from amidst olive groves to ocean views
Valeriane Lazard parisian apartment
Stay in a Parisian apartment which artfully balances minimalism and warmth
Conrad Buff II Residence, Pasadena house
Buy a slice of California’s midcentury modern history with this 1955 Pasadena house
Satguru’s Rendezvous, Mumbai
Pretty in pink: Mumbai's new residential tower shakes up the cityscape
Latest in Feature
the toteme store in China by herzog & de meuron
Bold, geometric minimalism rules at Toteme’s new store by Herzog & de Meuron in China
zaha hadid architects future projects
The upcoming Zaha Hadid Architects projects set to transform the horizon
black and white image of kitchen
‘La Cocina’: the kitchen is a chaotic melting pot of contemporary culture in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ new film
lean lui guide to hong kong
A local’s guide to Hong Kong, by photographer Lean Lui
people at watch show
What can we expect from Watches and Wonders 2025?
Perfume Genius Glory album artwork
Inside the visual universe of Perfume Genius