Albert Frey’s 1931 Aluminaire House and Its Influence on American Modernism

Presented by Modernism Week and Palm Springs Art Museum.

Architect Leo Marmol serves on the Board of Trustees of the Museum and led the design team that successfully made the Museum’s exhibition of Aluminaire House possible. In anticipation of the Palm Springs Art Museum’s permanent installation of the Aluminaire House, Marmol will explore the design impact of the home and the home’s century-long journey from New York to Palm Springs.

The home was designed by Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher as part of the New York Architectural and Allied Arts Exposition in 1931. The original installation represented the first major exhibition of European Modernism on U.S. soil. Constructed of prefabricated steel and aluminum components and designed following the principles set forth by Albert Frey’s mentor, Le Corbusier, the structure acted as a harbinger of American Modernism and the futuristic way of life it promised. The lecture will explore why Palm Springs supports Modern Architecture as the prevailing aesthetic as well as Frey’s relationship with the desert.

Marmol will trace the varied influences of Modern Architecture in California from Le Corbusier’s revolutionary treatise, The Five Points of Architecture and Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus Manifesto, to the social, economic, and geographic conditions that made the arid region of Palm Springs so ripe for the cultivation and proliferation of Modern Architecture – hence the ideal permanent home for Aluminaire.

Leo Marmol is an architect and artist based in Los Angeles. He received his Bachelor of Architecture with a Minor in Philosophy from California Polytechnic State University in 1987, was elevated to the College of the Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 2007 and was inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2009. A founding partner of Marmol Radziner, Marmol oversees all aspects of the unique design-build practice offered by the innovative architecture firm. His firm’s project list includes a long list of iconic historic midcentury modern restorations, as well as new construction both residential and commercial. marmol-radziner.com.