Modernism Week 2022 Attracts Nearly 100,000 Post Pandemic

Modernism Week guests dance the night away to the music of the Dreamboats in front of the Hyatt Palm Springs.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID A. LEE

Nearly 100,000 people participated in the February 2022 Modernism Week, according to organizers, who offered more than 350 events during the 11-day festival. Celebrating midcentury modern design, architecture, art, and culture in Greater Palm Springs, the festival generated an estimated economic impact of more than $50 million for area hotels, shops, restaurants, and other local businesses. In addition, CAMP, Modernism Week’s ‘Community and Meeting Place’ and headquarters for tours and events, experienced more than 21,000 visitors throughout the festival.

As one of the first major festivals to resume programing following the restrictions of the pandemic, this year Modernism Week featured fewer large gatherings and reduced capacity for most events, which resulted in a slightly smaller but higher-quality experience. The festival once again offered attendees the opportunity to participate in home tours, parties, and architectural bus excursions in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, and Indian Wells.

“We were delighted to resume our annual Modernism Week programing this year,” says William Kopelk, Modernism Week board chairman. “We took the precautions of limiting event sizes and many of the 350 programs were held outdoors. We’re pleased that our attendees continued to learn about midcentury modern design, architecture and culture regionally, nationally and internationally. We couldn’t do this without the support of our primary sponsors, including Ferguson Kitchen, Bath & Lighting Gallery, Corian Design, JennAir, and Brizo. The support of these sponsors and so many others, as well as the City of Palm Springs, our Civic Presenting Sponsor, makes this event one in which attendees plan to return each year. Modernism Week continues to help brand the entire Coachella Valley as a mecca for design, preservation, modernism and architecture, which has a year-round influence on the valley’s tourism and international stature.”

Modernism Week attendees stroll around the trailer show.

Modernism Week attendees came from all 50 United States and the District of Columbia, with California accounting for the majority of attendees (approximately 43.5%). Attendees came from 450 of 482 cities in California, or 93 percent of all California cities. Locally, the Coachella Valley represented 37 percent of tickets sold in California. In addition to many California visitors, the event was popular with attendees from Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. Attendees came from across the globe with twenty countries represented, including Canada, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Japan and many more.

The popular Palm Springs Modernism Show & Modern Design Expo, which celebrated its 22nd year, also saw robust attendance numbers. More than 16,500 people attended the popular sale at the Palm Springs Convention Center, up nearly 10 percent from the previous year and making the shows the most well-attended in the company’s history. Additionally, more than 1,400 attendees participated in the opening night preview event that benefitted Modernism Week. The show will return to Palm Springs for Modernism Week’s October 2022 event and again in February 2023.

Lisa Vossler Smith (center), executive director of Modernism Week, joined the event's opening night party festivities with her '60s attire.

“The 2022 Palm Springs Modernism Show & Modern Design Expo was a great success,” says Rosemary Krieger, president of Dolphin Promotions. “Our dealers were extremely pleased with sales and despite being the first show since the pandemic, it was by far the most well-attended of the Palm Springs shows in our company’s history.”

Modernism Week celebrates and fosters appreciation of midcentury architecture and design, as well as contemporary thinking in these fields, by encouraging education, preservation and sustainable modern living as represented in Palm Springs and the surrounding Coachella Valley. Highlighting this dedication to education, this year more than 70 lectures and films spotlighting famed architects, landscape designers, historians, design experts and authors were presented to attendees, including the sold-out Modernism Week Keynote presentation by Jeanne Gang, FAIA, the founding principal of Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design practice based in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris.

Other highlights included “Stories Untold: Black Modernists in Southern California” a new symposium that drew attention to achievements by Black designers, builders and developers who helped shape Palm Springs and Southern California for more than a century.

Architect Hugh Kaptur with Nelda Linsk.

For the first time, Modernism Week’s central headquarters, CAMP (‘Community and Meeting Place’) was staged in the spacious lobby of the Hyatt Palm Springs hotel located in the heart of downtown. CAMP included an information desk, a box office, a shop by Modernism Week’s merchandise and branding partner Destination PSP, a theater, and many interactive sponsor booths, including Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery, Jenn Air, Brizo, Willis, Dunn Edwards, Mirai (Toyota), Tidelli and FLOR. Entry into CAMP was free and open to the public daily.

Later this spring, Modernism Week will offer additional programming May 12-15, 2022.