Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan Association, Palm Springs: architect, style and history

Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan Association was designed by E. Stewart Williams during the brief span in the early 1960s when he worked in the International Style for commercial buildings, drawing directly on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 1929 Barcelona Pavilion. The single-story bank building has since been renamed and repurposed, and today operates as the Palm Springs Art Museum's Architecture and Design Center, also known as the Edwards Harris Pavilion, after an earlier run as American Savings.

the building

Barcelona Pavilion influence. The building's flat roof, deep overhangs, and open, glassy massing follow the model Mies van der Rohe set with the Barcelona Pavilion in 1929, translated here into a Palm Springs bank.

Steel frame and glass walls. A steel-frame structure carried on thin steel posts replaces load-bearing masonry, freeing the walls for large glass surface areas that give the building its transparency.

Perforated sliding sun panels. Full-height sliding perforated metal panels run along the glass, letting the building control how much desert sun reaches the interior while keeping its steel-and-glass character intact.

the style

Built in the International Style, the design belongs to a short window in the early 1960s when Williams applied this idiom to commercial work rather than the desert modernism he used elsewhere, taking his cue directly from Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion.

the architect

E. Stewart Williams is remembered as a master architect of mid-century Palm Springs. This building captures a brief chapter in his output: for only a short span in the early 1960s he worked in the International Style for commercial buildings, modeling this design closely on Mies van der Rohe's 1929 Barcelona Pavilion.

significance

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. Originally a bank, the building has been adapted for reuse as the Palm Springs Art Museum's Architecture and Design Center, also called the Edwards Harris Pavilion, after an earlier life as American Savings.

nearby

Coachella Valley Savings No. 1 470 ft · Mid-Century Modern
Avalon Hotel and Bungalows Palm Springs 0.1 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1929
Coachella Valley Savings No. 2 0.2 mi · Mid-Century Modern
Palm Springs Art Museum 0.4 mi · 1938
Frey House II 0.5 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1964
Fire Station No. 1 0.5 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1955

All 21 buildings in Palm Springs