Aug 22, 2022
Like so many people, Erik
Rosenow moved to Palm Springs for his love of midcentury
architecture. He bought a 1959 Donald Wexler-designed house in El
Rancho Vista Estates, founded a neighborhood community
organization, and became President of the Palm Springs Preservation
Foundation, where he’s still on the Board. He now lives in a 1970s
brutalist townhome attributed to William Cody. Erik is the author
of The Architecture of Desert
Leisure, with wonderful
vintage photographs and advertisements to honor condos, the
buildings that like Rodney Dangerfield, don’t get much
respect.
Judith Chafee studied
at Yale under architect Paul Rudolph. In
1959 she was the first woman to win the Koppers Architectural
Student Design Competition - however, the award ceremony was held
in a men's club and Chafee had to go through the kitchen to receive
the plaque. She received a BA and MA in architecture from Yale in
1960 as the only woman in her class and worked for firms such
as Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and Walter Gropius.
Notably she worked on the TWA building at JFK. She moved back to
her roots in Tucson to start her own firm.
Author Kathryn McGuire is an architect based in southern Arizona and worked with Judith Chafee for over 20 years. McGuire and Christopher Domin, who you may know was co-author of Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses, wrote the award-winning book Powerhouse: The Life and Work of Judith Chafee. Later, a few minutes with TikTok-famous design critic, Louisa Whitmore.