A Beacon of Modern Architecture Lands in the Desert

The Aluminaire House, one of the earliest and edgiest examples of the International Style of modernist architecture in America, was never meant to withstand a harsh desert climate. Originally it wasn’t even designed to be outside.

When the 27-year-old Swiss architect Albert Frey moved to New York in 1930 and teamed up with an Architectural Record editor to build this affordable, modular — some say prefab — metal house, it was part of a design showcase inside the Grand Central Palace, a soaring exhibition hall made by the architects behind Grand Central Terminal. The house, a boxy three-storystructure clad in aluminum panels that went up within 10 days, drew big crowds as well as some gleeful ridicule from the mainstream press, which naturally helped to establish its bona fides as avant-garde architecture.

Now, having been disassembled, reassembled and relocated three times over the decades and rescued from demolition along the way, the influential house is being reconstructed in a new — and the plan is, permanent — site. It has been rebuilt by the Palm Springs Art Museum on a revamped parking lot just south of the museum with a budget of $2.6 million, and a public opening is set for March 23. In anticipation, an Albert Frey exhibition opened at the museum in January.