Palm Springs mid-century modern design is closely associated with low roofs, bright pools and a mountain rising in the distance. That image comes from choices made by architects and hoteliers as Palm Springs grew into a postwar resort. The city’s history around water, however, reaches much further back than the swimming pool.
The spring at the center of Palm Springs
The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians has long stewarded the hot mineral spring in what is now downtown Palm Springs. The Tribe calls it Séc-he, a name connected to the sound of the water. The spring anchors a living Indigenous history. It also gives the city’s name a specific geography that is easy to miss when the story begins with hotels and Hollywood visitors.
How the desert entered the design
After World War II, hotels and seasonal residences gave architects room to experiment with shade, glass and outdoor living. Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann Desert House, designed and built in 1946–47, is a clear example. Low horizontal planes and broad glazing frame the mountains. The pool extends the composition outdoors, with the water creating a bright, flat surface in contrast to the rugged landscape.
How the pool became a Palm Springs image
Architecture photographs helped circulate that visual language far beyond the desert. Julius Shulman photographed the Kaufmann house in the 1940s. In 1970, Slim Aarons photographed a poolside gathering there, placing the people and the setting in the same frame. Around town, postwar hotels such as the Desert Hills gave visitors a more everyday version of outdoor resort living. The public image of Palm Springs grew from both kinds of places.
The place in the poster
Summer Oasis draws on that resort vocabulary in an imagined scene, with turquoise water, palms and mountains arranged around a poolside figure.
See the Palm Springs Summer Oasis poster or browse the Pacific Moderne Travel Posters collection.
Continue with Laguna Beach Art Colony: How Painters Made the Coast Their Subject.