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In 1987, New York Institute of Technology architects Michael Schwarting and Frances Campani avoided demolition of the 1931 Aluminare House, then located on a private estate in Huntington, Long Island.
Designed by Lawrence Kocher and Albert Frey, the Aluminaire House has since become an icon of modernist design and was recently listed by Architectural Record as one of the most important buildings in the world of the past 125 years.
During a Modernism Week presentation Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Palm Springs, Schwartin and Campany remembered first entering the building and seeing the state of disrepair that included graffiti on the walls and missing original Design features.
After a grant was secured, the house was documented, and architecture students dismantled it floor by floor and moved it into storage before being rebuilt on New York Institute of Technology’s Central Islip campus.
“People were upset when the news broke that the Huntington Aluminum House was going to be demolished. Paul Goldberg wrote an article in the New York Times and he was upset, and so was the American Institute of Architects on Long Island. Not happy and looking for someone to take care of it,” Schwartin said. “I started teaching at New York Institute of Technology, and the dean asked, ‘Would you be interested in saving this house? People kept calling me about it.'”
When Koch and Frey designed the Lamp House, the two followed Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier’s five principles. The five principles are the use of reinforced concrete columns, unsupported walls, free exterior design, horizontal windows and roof gardens.
Frey moved to Palm Springs in 1934 and worked on more than 300 properties in the desert. Some of his famous homes include Frey House I on E. Paseo El Mirador, Frey House II above the Palm Springs Art Museum, Cree House on the border of Palm Springs and Cathedral City, and Guthrie House on Mel Avenue in Palm Springs.
it was built as a case study home
The Aluminaire House was designed as a case study home made from donated materials, with a metallic exterior, to showcase affordable architecture and housing for the 1931 United Arts, Industry, and Architectural League Exhibition in New York City. The house took just seven days to make its debut at the Central Palace Exhibition Hall. While it was there, 100,000 visitors walked through the house.
The exhibition received widespread coverage, notably two notable articles by Douglas Haskell in Parnassus Magazine and Catherine Bauer Wurster’s Two famous articles published in The New Republic magazine. Bauer Wurster describes it as “A beautiful piece of work,” while Haskell said it was “aesthetically rough” but supported its ideas.
Harrison purchased the house in 1931 and installed it on his property as a summer home and guest house.
Harrison grew tired of it, decided it wasn’t big enough, and began building his own home on the same land, according to Schwartin. An article in Life magazine showed Harrison mowing the lawn with his hilltop home in the background, but later moved further down the hill.
“When we took it apart, we found that it hadn’t been taken apart, but that it had been pushed or something,” Schwartin said.
In 2012, the house was demolished again
When the Central Islip school district decided to pull its building program off campus, the house was demolished again in 2012 out of fear of damage due to declining student numbers. It was transferred to the Aluminaire House Foundation and put into storage.
With the campus nearly empty and threatened by destruction, in 2012 the school decided to demolish the house and store it until a suitable site could be found.
“We hired a builder that we work with regularly and he came in with a very small crew and they took it apart in about a week or so. We put the whole thing on a 40-foot trailer , and then start looking for locations.”
After a nine-year search for a permanent home failed in 2013 when a proposal to reassemble the home in Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, the building was donated to the Palm Springs Art Museum in 2017. Modernism Week board member Mark Davis, also of the Aluminaire House Foundation and other desert architecture experts spearheaded a lengthy fundraising campaign that raised more than $600,000 to move it from New York to Palm Springs.
Early estimates to install residence at Palm Springs Art Museum are unrealistic
The Palm Springs Art Museum’s Aluminaire House was originally scheduled to be rebuilt in the winter of 2021-22, but the museum was closed for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Executive Director and CEO Adam Lerner told The Desert Sun in 2023 that the project would be completed in 2024 and that early estimates of $400,000 in construction costs were unrealistic.
At the 2022 Palm Springs Preservation Issues Symposium, Lerner said it would cost $2 million or more to install the outdoor exhibit at the end of the museum’s south parking lot, but construction costs were updated to $2.6 million. The museum received $2 million from a capital campaign and needs to raise the remaining $600,000.
On Tuesday, the museum said in a statement that it had raised the remaining funds, and Modernism Week donated $50,000, allowing the project to exceed the original goal set by the capital campaign directed by museum board member L.J. Cella.
Grand opening expected in March
Aluminaire House will have its grand opening on March 23 at 2 p.m., seven years after its announcement. However, visitors will not be able to actually go inside. Lerner said in 2023 that “making it accessible is not feasible” after further review of issues previously raised by the city regarding fire codes, lack of air conditioning and insulation, and ADA accessibility for people with disabilities.
The day will feature programming dedicated to Frey, with docents leading a tour of the Palm Springs Museum’s Center for Architecture and Design’s current “Albert Frey: Creative Modernist,” and the main museum will screen Frey in its atrium. Ray’s 8mm home movie.
Previous reporting by Desert Sun staff is included in this report
Desert Sun reporter Brian Bruschi covers arts and entertainment. You can contact him at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or on Twitter @bblueskye.
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