Modern Architecture

A New Designation for Las Vegas’ Historic El Cortez Hotel

Posted on: April 15th, 2013 by Katherine Flynn 1 Comment

Neon sign at historic El Cortez Hotel in Las Vegas. Credit: Roadside Pictures, Flickr

Las Vegas is legendary for being a city of neon lights and tourists -- a place where everything, from the amount of money in people’s wallets to the signs outside of hotels and casinos, is constantly in flux.

So when the El Cortez Hotel, the longest continuously running downtown hotel-casino in the city, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in February of this year, Courtney Mooney, a historic preservation officer for the city of Las Vegas, saw it as a preservation victory in an ephemeral place.... Read More →

Katherine Flynn

Katherine Flynn is an editorial assistant at Preservation magazine. Her work has appeared online at the Washington Post and in Consequence of Sound, a music and culture blog.

More Posts (15)

[Slideshow] Instagram Tour: Don Draper’s Modernist Mecca in Palm Springs, Calif.

Posted on: April 7th, 2013 by Roberta Lane

The Edris House (1954) was carefully designed and sited to blend with its desert environment.

Last weekend, I escaped the chill of the Northeast to travel to Palm Springs, Calif. for a friend’s wedding. My trip from NYC to Palm Springs followed the path of Don Draper in Season 2 of the AMC series Mad Men, when some drama unfolded in a great Modernist house in the desert. For a preservationist like me, the house was the star of that episode.... Read More →

Roberta Lane

Roberta Lane is the Senior Field Officer and Attorney for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Boston Field Office. She has been with the Trust since 2006, delivering preservation technical assistance and legal guidance in the field. In early 2013, Roberta is transferring to New York City to staff the Trust’s new field office there.

More Posts (3)

A Modern Use for a Modernist Gem in Palm Springs

Posted on: March 22nd, 2013 by Katherine Flynn

A rendering of the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion. The museum is tentatively scheduled to open the fall of 2014.

When Sidney Williams and the the Palm Springs Art Museum staff decided to invest in an old bank building downtown for a new architecture and design center, it helped that the museum and the bank already had something in common -- both were designed by the same Modernist architect.... Read More →

Katherine Flynn

Katherine Flynn is an editorial assistant at Preservation magazine. Her work has appeared online at the Washington Post and in Consequence of Sound, a music and culture blog.

More Posts (15)

High Tide for Modernism in Rehoboth Beach?

Posted on: February 26th, 2013 by Guest Writer 1 Comment

Written by Arnold Berke, Rehoboth homeowner and Contributing Editor at Preservation magazine

This article originally appeared in Letters from CAMP Rehoboth.

Modernism style in North Shores, Rehobeth Beach. Credit: Arnold Berke
A modern home in North Shores

On the main drag of North Shores stands a gorgeous house.

I love its simple form (two tall boxes joined by a recessed “hyphen” and topped with a flat roof), colors (a soft grey set off by mustard, red, and black), lack of embellishment, and the way its slightly irregular arrangement of windows, doors, and decks pulls the composition back from total symmetry. The house is crisp and witty, and, despite four garage doors at ground level, seems to float over the landscape. The place makes me smile.

But tell people I’m smitten, and they give me a look of lemon-sucking disdain that even Violet, Dowager Duchess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, would be hard-put to surpass: head canted back and twisted, lips tightly pursed, eyes widened into saucers of disbelief.... Read More →

Although we're always on the lookout for blog content, we encourage readers to submit story ideas or let us know if you've seen something that might be interesting and engaging for a national audience. Email us at editorial@savingplaces.org.

More Posts (395)

Modern Beauty in Gary, Indiana: Edward Dart and St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

Posted on: February 20th, 2013 by David Robert Weible 22 Comments

Interior of St. Augustine's, 1960

In 1927, 30 African-Americans chartered a new Episcopal mission in the steel town of Gary, Indiana, just across the Illinois border from Chicago. Though the congregation struggled in its early years, it was strong and financially stable enough by the mid-1950s to commission its own place of worship. But a chance connection and the unexpected relationship that followed created more than just a house of God.... Read More →

David Robert Weible

David Robert Weible is an assistant editor at Preservation magazine. He came to DC from Cleveland, Ohio, where he wrote for Sailing World and Outside magazines.