Still standing today, the complex features “an extraordinary (and well-preserved) assortment of screen block patterns,” according to The Power of Pattern. Krisel-who referred to screen blocks as “functional ornamentation”-used the element throughout his Sandpiper condominiums in neighboring Palm Desert. During the 1950s and ’60s, Alexander Construction Company used screen blocks on many of its 1,200-plus moderately priced, architect-designed modernist homes, most of them designed by William Krisel.
Glass blocks for sale windows#
At a time when large glass windows were in fashion, the blocks were practical.Įntire tracts of homes built in that time incorporated patterned concrete blocks. They rose to prominence in the Sun Belt in the late 1950s, coinciding with a surge in migration to the Southwest and the South. Architect Edward Durrell Stone drew attention to the building material when he incorporated them into his 1959 design for the U.S. Patterned or not, sun-reducing screens have been used in Indian, Arabic, and Japanese architecture for centuries. They found there’s not much reverence for them outside of Palm Springs, and they want them to be better understood, appreciated, and, when possible, protected.
It “gave us an opportunity to indulge in something we were passionate about,” Ron says. The Marshalls, retired security specialists who now serve on the board of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation, spent about a decade researching the book, driving across the country hunting down screen blocks on a mission to spread the screen block love beyond the borders of Palm Springs.
“For a city of 40,000, there’s an amazing concentration and diversity of screen block here,” he says. Marshall and his co-author and wife, Barbara Marshall, estimate that Palm Springs is home to 40 different types of of concrete screen block patterns. Marshall correlates Palm Springs residents’ appreciation for the blocks with the sheer volume of the building material in the city.
The Curbed guide to Southern California’s desertįrom storied ghost towns and and hardy, striking flora to iconic Palm Springs hot spots, we’re celebrating the divine desert landscape in LA’s backyard. “In Palm Springs, there’s a high architectural IQ, and these blocks are much loved locally,” says Ron Marshall, co-author of Concrete Screen Block: The Power of Pattern, a new book on breeze blocks that will be released Friday to coincide with Modernism Week. But Palm Springs residents still have an affinity for them. Stacked together, the blocks form striking larger, geometric patterns, sometimes looking like overlapping circles, waves, or honeycomb.Īdvances in technology, like air conditioning and building materials such as double-paned glass, have made it easy and affordable to keep homes cool without these stylized screens. Prevalent in front yards across Palm Springs, concrete screen blocks have a handful of aliases-breeze blocks, ornamental blocks-that hint at their functional but decorative use as permeable fences and walls that filter sun and wind and offer privacy at homes, offices, and churches. But the city is a haven for another midcentury feature that doesn’t get the widespread attention it deserves: the concrete screen block.
Palm Springs’s midcentury modern flair-its swooping butterfly roofs and endless walls of glass-is now nationally known.
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