Albert Frey, the desert modernist

Architect Albert Frey (1903–1998) saw a modernist utopia in the desert. Born in Zurich, he studied in Europe with Le Corbusier before moving to the United States in 1930, convinced it was the land of architectural opportunity. On a visit to Palm Springs, he fell under the desert spell. It was here, amid the arid and empty landscape, that he could truly envisage a perfect modern future.

Like fellow Californian luminary, John Lautner, Frey would spend the rest of his career nurturing the consonance of architecture and nature: studying the fall of sunlight and rain, and merging aluminum, steel, and glass with the boulders and sands of the West Coast wilds. His vision centered in particular on Palm Springs, capitalizing on the city’s postwar population boom to create a bastion of the sleek, leisurely modernism that defines midcentury California.

In this dependable architect introduction, we follow Frey’s long and prestigious career from his European beginnings through to the apogee of his Californian practice, taking in his notes on De Stijl, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus, and exploring the stylistic, material, and geographic makings of his unique “desert modernism.”

Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Architecture series features:

• an introduction to the life and work of the architect
• the major works in chronological order
• information about the clients, architectural preconditions as well as construction problems and resolutions
• a list of all the selected works and a map indicating the locations of the best and most famous buildings
• approximately 120 illustrations (photographs, sketches, drafts, and plans)