Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the prolific Palm Springs architect whose distinctive modernist buildings significantly shaped the Coachelle Valley’s architectural landscape? One of his most famous works is the house of Frank Sinatra.
He was born to a family of architects in 1909. His father Harry was a well-respected architect best known for designing the offices of the National Cash Register or NCR. In 1934, Julia Carnell, whose husband was the comptroller of NCR, decided that a commercial development in Palm Springs would be a good investment and Harry was asked to design the historic La Plaza Shopping Center.
His younger brother Roger also became an architect. After completing his studies at Cornell University in 1932, he taught briefly at Columbia, and then traveled extensively through Europe. In 1946, he joined his father and brother in their Palm Springs practice, and his first residential commission was a house for Frank Sinatra.
He said that in 1947, Sinatra wandered into their office with an ice cream cone and stated he wanted a house built by Christmas, meaning he had only three months to design and another three to build it. Sinatra’s other requirement was that it had to be a Georgian-style mansion, a style neither aesthetically nor functionally suited to the desert.
He ended up presenting Sinatra with two designs, one in the style he requested, and the other was a low-lying modern design, well integrated into the surrounding landscape and functionally appropriate to the climate. Luckily for all, Sinatra chose the latter.
The house would become an architectural trendsetter (being the first shed-roof house in the desert) and serve as a model of hipness in the desert community, although this was as much due to the occupant as the design.
What followed was an unbroken string of commissions, large and small, institutional and private, commercial and residential, which made his practice famous.
Among his most significant commissions was for a house for the Seattle Hotel owners William and Marjorie Edris, which declared a historic building by the Palm Springs City Council in 2004.
His most dramatic public building is the Palm Springs Desert Museum. Its first phase was designed in 1976, and his last project was a major expansion of the Desert Museum known as the Steve Chase Museum.
He passed away on Sept. 10, 2005.
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Last week’s question: Who is the American food guru who hosts the Food Network’s Good Eats and is the main commentator on Iron Chef America?
Answer: Alton Brown
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