Palm Springs Modern Living

Book excerpt: Palm Springs is as much a showcase for its unparalleled collection of Midcentury Modern architecture as it is for the unique people that designed and inhabit that architecture. With Palm Springs Modern Living, photographer James Schnepf has created a wonderful collection of photographs that document both the iconic architecture and fascinating people of this desert oasis. More than fifty modernists, artists, builders, and architects were interviewed, including such Midcentury Modern luminaries as Donald Wexler, William Krisel, and Hugh Kaptur, and their stories and anecdotes provide a perfect complement to Schnepf’s vivid photography. Together, they manage to bring Palm Springs to life in a way that most volumes of architectural photos could never hope to achieve. James Schnepf is a location photographer with an emphasis on people. He has photographed for a long list of America’s leading corporations and publications, and these assignments have taken him to all parts of the world. In his travels he has always kept an eye open for a climate and community to balance the cold winters of his family’s Midwest base. He and his wife, Christiane, found that place in California’s Coachella Valley, where they own a 1959 William Krisel–designed home.