Each February, Palm Springs becomes a living archive of modern architecture—one where iconic houses, experimental landscapes, and preservation debates are experienced firsthand. That convergence returns during this year’s Modernism Week, running February 12–22, with more than 450 programs that move beyond midcentury nostalgia to explore how modernist ideas continue to inform contemporary architectural practice.
For architects, the focus often centers on how modernism responded to climate, lifestyle, and material experimentation—and how those same principles are being tested today through preservation and reinterpretation. It is this ongoing dialogue between history and contemporary practice that drives the festival.
One such moment arrives February 19 at 10:30 a.m. at the Palm Springs Art Museum Lecture Hall, where a panel moderated by ARCHITECT Editor-in-Chief Paul Makovsky and presented by Marvin will take a closer look at how California Modernism has evolved—and traveled—over time.
Bringing together architect-historian Alan Hess, architect Chris Kurrle of Feldman Architecture, and Palm Springs Art Museum Executive Director Christine Vendredi, the discussion will revisit familiar modernist icons—Richard Neutra, Albert Frey, and John Lautner—while expanding the narrative to include figures such as E. Stewart Williams and Helen Liu Fong.
Drawing on recent scholarship and research, the panel will explore how California Modernism emerged not solely from singular masters, but from a broader ecosystem shaped by climate, landscape, and lived experience. That emphasis produced a distinct, often understated sense of luxury—rooted in spatial flow, environmental responsiveness, and livability—that helped extend the style’s influence across the Southwest, the United States, and beyond.
Get tickets here: https://modernismweek.com/2026/films-lectures/the-known-and-overlooked-expanding-story/