Palm Springs Modernism Week kicks off today, and we're taking a closer look at some of the city's best mid-century buildings to coincide with the event. First up is the Tramway Gas Station, designed by architects Albert Frey and Robson Chambers to mark the entrance into the modernist mecca.
The station is located on the northern edge of Palm Springs where Tramway Road ? a single-lane track leading to the Palm Springs aerial tramway ? joins the major State Route 111 highway.
Photograph by Flickr user Gord McKenna
Completed in 1965, it remains one of the first buildings visible to those travelling south along the road from Los Angeles into the Californian desert city, which experienced a boom in architecture from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Having worked together for over 10 years as partners at their Palm Springs-based firm Frey and Chambers, Swiss-born architect Albert Frey and Robson Chambers from LA had already completed several projects as part of this modernist movement before working on the gas station. Photograph by Flickr user Gary Bembridge
Frey ? who first established the firm in the 1930s ? is also regarded as a founding father of the city's "desert modernism" architectural style, which responded to the area's bright and arid climate.
Built as an Esso service station, the Tramway Gas Station was one of the last projects the duo completed together and encapsulates many key elements of modernist architecture.
Its most prominent feature is the huge wing-shaped ...