In 1924, when the developer Pearl McCallum McManus opened her Oasis Hotel, in Palm Springs, it was like nothing the desert had seen before. Built with thick “slip-form concrete” walls to withstand the heat, the four-story structure had a sculptural silhouette that blended into the surrounding rock. Mount San Jacinto loomed in the distance. And trench doors opened onto a wisteria-covered terrace, where the view was nothing but dust and sunlight.
A year later, across the Atlantic, the 1925 “Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes” opened at the Grand Palais. Critics would call the style on display—as deployed by young artists such as Francis Jourdain and Maurice Dufrêne—“art moderne.” But the Oasis Hotel came first. It was designed by Lloyd Wright, the eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright.
