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Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher’s light fixture house was finally reassembled and installed in Palm Springs, California. After two years of fundraising and several months of assembly, the full-metal-clad prototype appears to be at home at the Palm Springs Art Museum.
As previously reported one This avant-garde building debuted in New York City in 1931 as part of an exhibition presented by the United Arts and Industries Society and the Architectural League of New York. It was later relocated to Long Island as a private residence and then placed on the campus of the New York Institute of Technology.
The 1,200-square-foot reflective structure is defined primarily by its rectangular shape, clad in thin columns and long spans of glass on each of its three floors. Los Angeles-based architecture firm Marmol Radziner worked closely with Palm Springs Art Museum board members to facilitate the structure’s re-exhibition and renovation. Installing the house on its new site in the museum’s south parking lot required the pouring of a new concrete foundation. The HVAC equipment was upgraded, specifically adding air conditioning – a necessity due to the building’s desert climate.
Visitors cannot enter the house’s interior, but they can peer through large windows on either side of the reflective walls and scrutinize the siding materials, a collage of sheet metal, plate glass, steel beams and linoleum. This innovative use of materials was groundbreaking for its time and was part of Frey’s research into the design and construction of mass-produced affordable housing.
With the Lamp House now open at the Palm Springs Art Museum, it’s a full-circle moment for a structure built as a prototype for a home. It was built in just 10 days as part of an International Style exhibition. Now, decades later, it will always be on people’s radar.
The opening of Aluminaire House coincides with an Albert Frey retrospective. The exhibition, housed in the Edwards Harris Pavilion, the museum’s Center for Architecture and Design, brings together the Swiss architect’s seminal work, including a number of commercial and residential projects Frey designed around Palm Springs.
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