Aluminaire House Coming to Palm Springs Skip Descant, the Desert Sun 3:30 P.M

Aluminaire House coming to Palm Springs Skip Descant, The Desert Sun 3:30 p.m. PST February 17, 2015 (Photo: Provided photo) The Aluminaire House — a 1930s era architectural installation — is coming to Palm Springs for permanent residency in the city's soon-to-be-developed downtown event space. The location is just across the street from the Palm Springs Art Museum. "I can honestly tell you: It is coming," Mayor Steve Pougnet told several hundred supporters of the project during a weekend fundraiser at the Palm Springs Visitors Center. "Actually, we raised enough money. It will be leaving New York, and it will be coming to Palm Springs. It will be staying at the Palm Springs city yard until our site is prepared and the restoration can begin." The party, known as "An Evening for Aluminaire," was part of Modernism Week, a 10-day Palm Springs festival celebrating the region's rich history in mid-twentieth century architecture and design. The Aluminaire House is an architecture exhibition piece designed by famed Palm Springs architect Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher, managing editor of The Architecture Record, back in 1931 for the Allied Arts and Industry and Architectural League Exhibition. The two men were both disciples of the Bauhaus design movement, which was popular in Europe at the time. And they wanted Aluminaire to explore the use of prefab modern materials like aluminum. The home has been packed away in a crate in New York while officials here worked to raise the money — estimated to be about $600,000 — needed to bring the home to Palm Springs for assembly and display. Donations — including a $50,000 gift from the Eisenhower Medical Center and a $10,000 donation from Desert Regional Medical Center, along with anonymous contributions — helped cover much of the tab. Tickets to Sunday's fundraiser cost as much as $250 a person. "And with this event tonight, we have raised, already in a month over $200,000. So that tells you — like anything — if you have a product, that is an incredible product, people want to be a part of it," Pougnet told the crowd. "Hopefully, a year from now, we'll be having one heck of a party in downtown Palm Springs." A 50,500-square-foot space in the Museum Market Plaza downtown redevelopment is being planned as a city-owned outdoor event space. The area is intended for outdoor concerts, festivals, convention center events and other public gatherings. The city paid Wessman Development — the firm leading the 14-acre redevelopment of the area — $5.3 million for the parcel. 'We are in the process of master planning our event space in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum," Pougnet told the crowd Sunday night. "And one of the directives to the master planners is to master plan Aluminaire into that space in front of the museum. I think this is going to knock it out of the world, I am telling you. "So folks, it is coming. That's a done deal. It is coming," the mayor said to huge applause. The Museum Market Plaza also will include two new hotels, spaces for new retail, commercial and restaurant operations, as well as housing, urban outdoor spaces and more than 1,000 underground parking spaces. In the world of architecture and design, the tiny Aluminaire House is regarded as a sort of signpost, one that brought the international style — already popular in Europe through the Bauhaus movement and figures like Le Corbusier — to the United States. And landing the structure allows Palm Springs to more significantly burnish its reputation as a small California resort city serious about mid-century modern architecture, style, and — perhaps more importantly — its preservation. The Aluminaire House also will allow Palm Springs to claim examples of Frey's work from its origins in 1931 to 1989, when he designed what would become his final residential project in Smoke Tree Ranch. "We are going to add to our amazing collection of mid-century modern buildings, and particular, Albert Frey buildings," said Mark Davis, one of the project's organizers. The Aluminaire House project has been one that "people have attached on to. They understand it. They get it. And Palm Springs is the place for it to be," Davis added. Palm Springs leaders also grew attached to Seward Johnson's 26-foot-tall depiction of Marilyn Monroe, known as "Forever Marilyn." The sculpture stood at the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way for nearly two years, capturing the fascination of countless visitors and locals. The sculpture was on loan to Palm Springs and, nearly a year ago, was sent to Grounds For Sculpture, a sculpture park of more than 40 acres in Hamilton, N.J. Ever since, city and tourism officials have pledged they intend to "get Marilyn back." And Pougnet offered a reminder Sunday night that he has not forgotten. "Don't worry, I won't put Marilyn right on top of the Aluminaire. That's not going to happen." Pougnet said to laughs. .

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