February 2009

Horoscope February 2009

By Sherryl Nova

Ah, Aquarians. Intellectually social, you can be found in group after group, wherever you can increase your understanding of the human condition. You represent the next 2,000 years, when the electric networking of Aquarius replaces the faith-based emotionalism of Pisces.

PSST! — Intelligencer

Palm Springs Art Museum, Opera Showcase of the Desert, Happy Chickadee, Kraft Nabisco Championship Celebrity Pro-Am, Copley's on Palm Canyon, Teco Pottery, Mel Haber, Les Dames D'Escoffier.

PSST! — Mamma Mia! This is a Symphony?

By Scott Brassart

On Feb. 11, Desert Symphony celebrates its 20th anniversary at McCallum Theatre with The Music of ABBA. “Everything you know from the musical and movie, we’ll be doing,” Maestro Edwin “Ben” Benachowski says.

PSST! — Tour de Force

By Janice Kleinschmidt

Natural light floods Jean Carrus’ residence by home designer Guy Dreier. The glass-and-stone structure contrasts with yet complements Carrus’ collection of Western and Indian art, while lake and pool views provide the perfect setting for contemporary sculpture. Those who take the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert home tour will enjoy seeing this Waterford country club house and six other residences on Feb. 8.

PSST! — Cody's Enlightened Side

By Janice Kleinschmidt

Built for $382,000, St. Theresa’s Church was designed by one of its earliest parishioners: architect William F. Cody. These days, midcentury modernism expert Robert Imber includes the building on all of his Palm Springs Modern Tours itineraries.

PSST! — Modern Love

By Janice Kleinschmidt

Joan and Gary Gand founded the appreciation organization Chicago Bauhaus and Beyond and attended modernism shows in the Windy City before they heard about Palm Springs’ modernism show. Having read about architect Albert Frey, they thought the desert event would feed their Frey fix.

In Store — Ode to Architecture

By Sarah Reiss

Architectural giants have produced furniture and accessories so that even if your house wasn’t designed by someone with a big name, you can have something inside it with their name attached.

Wealth — Modernism as an Investment

By Ellen Paris

Eric Ellenbogen spent two years painstakingly restoring the William Cody-designed midcentury modern Abernathy House. “This restoration was both a labor of love and insanity. Yet I would do it again,” he says. “You must really admire the work of your architect in order to do the restoration correctly.”

Wine — Red, White, and Green

By Janice Kleinschmidt

About the time you think you understand what is (or, more to the point, what is not) involved in organic agriculture, you start hearing about biodynamic and sustainable growing. Good luck if you’re looking for an abridged definition for either.

Wheels — Hit the Switch

By Pat Devereux

Ignore people who say now is no time to buy a sports car. It is exactly the time, especially if the dealer throws in a four-door luxury sedan for free. Sounds crazy, but that’s what all BMW dealerships are doing now.

Galleries — Have It Your Way

By Steven Biller

Known for applying thick layers of paint like so much icing on the cakes and desserts that made his still-life paintings famous, Wayne Thiebaud (born 1920) occupies a populist place in American art history.

Editor's Letter

By Steven Biller

This month — our annual Modernism Issue — we celebrate three masters of modernism: Krisel, Charles Hollis Jones, and Karl Benjamin. Each has had a foundational impact on modern design, and each has earned a soft spot in the hearts of enthusiasts of the hard-edge, minimalist Modern aesthetic.

Mission: Mud House

By Ann Japenga

The Coachella Valley once was dotted with hundreds of adobe houses, but most have washed away, collapsed, or been bulldozed. In recent months, some classics were slated for demolition. But economy-wary developers allow us a last chance to see these structural gems.

Masters of Modernism — The Accidental Modernist

By Steven Biller

From his favored chair in the living room of his midcentury modern house in Claremont, Karl Benjamin can see through the backyard atrium into his studio. Behind a wall of glass, the bright colors of three of his paintings — one of his classic stripe canvases, one with interlocking forms, and one geometrically abstracted landscape — exude a vitality that could be bittersweet for the 83-year-old artist.

Masters of Modernism — Now Clear This!

By Morris Newman

Like he does with his material of choice, Charles Hollis Jones reshapes himself. At 63, the iconic virtuoso of transparent plastic resin furniture has embarked on a series of chairs, four-poster beds, tables, and bar stools that will likely surprise anybody who remembers the almost puritanically Modernist work shown in the Elrod Showroom during the 1960s.

Masters of Modernism — The Butterfly Effect

By Morris Newman

William Krisel wants to clear up a misconception. “Whenever people see a house with a butterfly roof,” the 84-year architect says, “they think that I designed it.” But, he adds, “It’s not true.” It’s an understandable error in Palm Springs, where the roof with two wings evokes one of the city’s best-known home designs — from the Twin Palms tract, which Krisel and then-partner Dan Palmer designed in the late 1950s.

Daring Design

By Allison Engel

An apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright early in his career, John Lautner eschewed the cool, severe geometry of his midcentury minimalist peers. Instead, he spent a lifetime as an iconoclast, alternately overlooked or miscast by critics. Several of his best-known projects — including the iconic Googie coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard — have been wrongly celebrated as Atomic Age or Hollywood kitsch.