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Coachella debuts 2024 art installations, its ‘largest immersive and architectural works yet’

2024-04-16T11:43:00-04:00

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has completed work on the 2024 edition of its on-site art program. The acclaimed event is taking place across two weekends: April 12–14 and 19–21.

The three artistic works are described by the festival as "redefining the boundaries of large-scale art, inviting festival-goers to engage with visionary works that ask viewers to question their definition of self, explore the boundaries between reality and imagination & take part in creating a new future together."

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH. Image credit: Lance Gerber

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH explores the fusion of 3D printing with traditional craftsmanship, comprising a series of pavilions that “invite interaction and contemplation.” A collaboration between Cornell University professors Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic, the piece reimagines architectural design through the lens of digital fabri...

Oliver Wainwright on Disney's 'dream or nightmare' Storyliving community

2024-04-09T11:58:00-04:00

With revenue from cinema and streaming falling in recent years, income from Disney’s “experience” division is soaring, and property development is the next logical step. Disney tried it before in Florida, first with utopian plans for Epcot (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), followed by the quaint town of Celebration, but Storyliving takes the branded living experience to the next level.

Writing for The Guardian, critic Oliver Wainwright reflects on plans for a major Disney-themed development at Rancho Mirage in the California desert.

As we reported initially in 2022 and in a follow-up last year, the 2,000-home Storyliving by Disney scheme will include a midcentury-influenced member's clubhouse named for the fictional Parr family from the company’s “The Incredibles” franchise, where users can engage with Disney-themed art lessons and experience dinners inspired by Disney stories.

Related on Archinect: Disney unveils further details for planned Cotino community in the Coachella Valley. Image courtesy Disney Parks

In his latest article, Wainwright views the development through the lens of the Architecture of Stage Realities exhibition taking place at Arc en Reve in Bordeaux. The exhibition "paints a portrait of Walt Disney as a natural-born developer, a cartoonist who understood not only how to lure people into his magical worlds but how to keep them coming back," Wai...

Coachella announces lineup for 2024 installation designers

2024-01-17T11:44:00-05:00

The art and design lineup has been announced for the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The acclaimed event is set to take place across two weekends: April 12–14 and 19–21.

Besides major musical acts, this year’s festival will include installations by HANNAH, Morag Myerscough, Nebbia, Do LaB, NEWSUBSTANCE, Robert Bose, and Raices Cultura.

While HANNAH describes its work as “inherently derived from materiality, digital construction protocols, robotic routines, new technologies, odd construction techniques, and bottom-up design logics,” Morag Myerscough summarizes her mantra as “make happy those who are near and those who are far will come.” Nebbia Works is “fundamentally driven by a curiosity of all the idiosyncrasies, contradictions and undefined boundaries of our world,” while NEWSUBSTANCE, Do LaB, Robert Bose, and Raices Cultura are returning to the festival where they constructed installations in 2023.

Previously featured Coachella installations

Photo by Lance Gerber,...

Coachella debuts 2023 art installations as festival opens to the public

2023-04-19T11:31:00-04:00

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has debuted four anchoring art installations as part of its 2023 program. According to the organizers, the newly-commissioned sculptures by Kumkum Fernando, Vincent Leroy, Güvenç Özel, and Maggie West seek to bring “color, light, and alternate perspectives to the charged atmosphere” and act as “fresh, colorful, and architecture beacons that transform the iconic Coachella landscape and various times of day and night.”

The Messengers by Kumkum Fernando. Image credit: Lance Gerber, courtesy of Coachella

Kumkum Fernando’s The Messengers comprises three monolithic figures that appear as giant robots or action figures when viewed from afar. The Sri Lankan artist drew inspiration from the vivid colors of South Asian art and architecture, particularly Tibetan and Hindu temples, as well as folk tales of gods and demons. The resulting figures, standing between 65 and...

Disney unveils further details for planned Cotino community in the Coachella Valley

2023-03-27T17:03:00-04:00

Disney’s planned “Storyliving” community is gaining traction after the company released an update featuring additional details about their new Cotino project located in Rancho Mirage, 11 miles east of Palm Springs, California.

As KTLA reported this weekend, the scheme will come with a host of amenities “thoughtfully inspired by Disney Imagineers.” A midcentury-influenced member's clubhouse named for the fictional Parr family from Disney’s “The Incredibles” franchise will now grace the development as a centerpiece to Cotino’s 1,700 homes, a town shopping center, and Grand Oasis manmade water feature.

Image courtesy Disney Parks

Disney says: “The main entertaining room will take inspiration from the movie and will feature a towering indoor/outdoor rockwork fireplace. Additional spaces will include five bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, boardroom, and an art studio. Along Parr House's exterior, an elevated patio will present stunning views of the grand oasis and the surrounding mountain...

Desert X 2023 features work that highlights the social and ecological consequences in our changing world

2023-03-18T10:00:00-04:00

The fourth edition of Desert X kicked off earlier this month in Southern California’s Coachella Valley with 12 site-specific installations that focus on ecology and the global social and economic consequences of climate change.

Artists were challenged by the “desert, its beauty, harshness, and ever-changing environment,” according to the event’s founder and President Susan Davis. Their responses included evocations of childhood memory, Native American customs, free trade, conspiracy theories, and popularized notions of the American West, among other inspirations.

Desert X 2023 installation view, Hylozoic/Desires, Namak Nazar, photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy of the artist and Desert X.

“Desert X 2023 can be seen as a collection of artistic interventions that make visible how our energy has a transference far beyond what we see just in front of us in our own localities,” co-curator Diana Campbell says. “From deserts to floodplains, finding, building and developing tools and tactics to...

Coachella announces 2023 art installations from Do LaB and Güvenç Özel

2023-01-12T11:24:00-05:00

The art and design lineup for this year’s Coachella festival has been announced ahead of the two-week event, which takes place in the modernism-rich Southern California hotspot from April 13th to the 23rd.

This year’s festival will include installations from Maggie West, Kumkum Fernando, Robert Bose, Don Kennell, Raices Cultura, UCLA IDEAS Studio instructor Güvenç Özel (whom our own Katherine Guimapang sat down with for a 2021 interview), conceptual environmentalist designer and artist Vincent LeRoy, and Do LaB. Another large-scale spiraling viewing platform structure named Spectra from the studio NEWSUBSTANCE will also grace the Empire Polo Field. Each will complement a packed musical lineup that includes The Chemical Brothers, Pusha T, and Bad Bunny, among many talented others.

2023 Coachella Lineup

Their installations will join past works from an illustrious group of international designers and architects who have contributed to past festivals, including Architensions, Office Kov...

Are Airbnbs and ultramodern architecture killing the vibe in Joshua Tree, California?

2022-04-14T13:13:00-04:00

Tensions over visitors, some of whom will, inevitably, want to claim a piece of the desert themselves, has been a part of the area’s story for years. But as the pandemic has boosted Joshua Tree’s allure for travelers, transplants and investors, it has magnified old conflicts and created new conundrums.

Numbers of short-term rentals have doubled in Joshua Tree and the neighboring community of Yucca Valley, presenting an existential crisis to some of its inhabitants dismayed at the new boom in development to meet the demands of the market. Even the tree species that the town is named for is under threat by overdevelopment (or so says the Center for Biological Diversity, whose petition is currently under review by the California Fish and Game Commission.)

Part of the draw is the growing number of Instagram-friendly architectural showpieces that have been spun off into midcentury-inspired camp compounds and Disneyfied planned communities. A rental typology may be developing around the trend entirely, characterized by maximized space for lodgings, matte finishes, and materials like mirrored glass and corrugated steel. Their appeal is nevertheless lost on some local desert dwellers, ...

'Storytelling to storyliving': Disney unveils designs for a new master-planned community in the Coachella Valley

2022-02-16T17:04:00-05:00

Those looking to spend their lives in the wonderful world of Disney may soon see their high hopes fulfilled after the 99-year-old entertainment giant announced a slate of new master-planned communities that will begin to take shape in its namesake’s one-time Southern California home.

Each community association will be operated by a selection of Disney cast members brought in from its Phillip Johnson-designed Celebration, Florida training grounds. The company’s press announcement also mentioned a club membership program that offers residents “curated experiences” including wellness programs and cooking demonstrations.

Image courtesy Disney Parks

On the surface, the structures that make up the planned communities don’t appear to be in the style of European-inspired architecture that was synonymous with the Disney brand. Instead, renderings appear to show more mid-century modern elements influenced by the local topography and material culture of the Palm Springs area, bringing it in lin...

Desert X 2021 showcases site-responsive installations that 'refuse the notion of the desert as homogenous entity'

2021-03-15T16:06:00-04:00

In January 2021, we previously reported Desert X's plans to postpone the third edition of the Coachella Valley's highly anticipated international art exhibition due to increasing Covid-19 cases. However, last Friday, the Coachella Valley "opened" their desert exhibitions to the public.

From March 12th to May 16th, visitors can experience site-specific installations that touch on the desert "as a place and idea." By honoring landscapes and its people, this year's programming will "build on themes explored in previous iterations, looking deeper at ideas essential to the sustenance of our future and identity and the histories, realities, and possibilities of the Coachella Valley and its many communities," shares Desert X.

Never Forget by Nicholas Galanin (2021). Image © Lance Gerber/Courtesy of the artist and Desert X

Desert X expresses their goals of unpacking issues pertinent to what society is currently facing today. Topics include "the history of land rights, ownership, and stewar...

Coachella 2020 to include installations by Oana Stănescu and Architensions

2020-01-03T14:45:00-05:00

Mark your calendars, Coachella 2020 has announced their line up of performers and artists participating in April! Besides the music, crowds, and overall desert festival ambiance, Coachella has been a breeding ground for emerging artists and designers showcasing their works.

This year the works of Romanian architect Oana Stănescu (who made her first appearance here on Archinect as a student blogger), New York/Rome-based architectural studio Architensions, and several others will be showcased at the festival.

2020 Coachella Lineup

Last year's lineup included the works of Andrew Kovacs of Architecture Affiliates and Francis Kéré of Kéré Architecture. Although many Coachella fans love basking in the musical sounds of famous artists like Flume, Peggy Gou, and Frank Ocean, many have grown to enjoy the large-scale installations scattered across the Coachella Valley. With the announcement of this year's lineup, we're positive many are getting their Coachella outfits ready and selfie poses ...

A closer look at Francis Kéré's colorful Coachella installation

2019-04-17T20:56:00-04:00

With the second weekend of Coachella underway, many festival-goers have already flooded social media with their experiences and favorite Instagrammable installations. Laid across the Coachella Valley are mesmerizing installations by architects and designers whose work blends art, architecture, and design exploration. One project in particular who has kept people buzzing is Francis Kéré's towered installation, Sarbalé Ke. Founder of Kéré Architecture Kéré was inspired by the Burkinabè baobab tree, a significant tree in African culture. Kéré reflected on the tree's cultural significance and used that as inspiration to further explore themes surrounding the topic of a village. The project's name Sarbalé Ke translates to "the House of Celebration" in Moore, a language spoke in various parts of Burkina Faso. Twelve baobab towers are placed around each other each varying in height and color.

Sarbalé Ke by Francis Kéré at the Coach...

The contemporary site-specific art exhibition, Desert X, returns to Coachella Valley

2019-02-14T12:41:00-05:00

Desert X, the enormous site-specific art exhibition set across the Coachella Valley, has returned this weekend for its second edition. Run by a nonprofit organization that includes artist Ed Ruscha on its board, the 2019 biennial features 18 works that respond to the desert's history and embrace a "range of ecological, environmental and social issues that have been driving conversations about our role in the anthropocene," says artistic director Neville Wakefield.

Revolutions by Nancy Baker Cahill. Photo by Lance Garber.

After an incredibly successful inaugural run in 2017, the biennial has expanded its programming this year to include film and augmented reality projects, such as Nancy Baker Cahill's Revolutions and Margins of Error, both of which bring colorful animations to the Valley's windmill farms and the Salton Sea, respectively, through the use of the 4th Wall app. Fifty miles away in Palm Springs, John Gerrard, the Irish artist known for his digital simulations, has brought...

Jimenez Lai to create "a very large structure" at Coachella 2016

2016-01-06T12:47:00-05:00

Proclaiming that he "want[s] to kiss the earth Kevin Costner style" via Instagram, Jimenez Lai of Bureau Spectacular expressed his joy about being on the same bill as LCD Soundsystem and Ice Cube for this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, where he will be building what he describes as "a very large structure."

The festival, which reportedly has attracted 90,000 attendees to each of its dual three-day weekends, has featured art installations by notable architectural studios before, including Ball-Nogues Studio's "Pulp Pavilion" in 2015.

Listen to our conversation with Jimenez in a previous episode of Archinect Sessions...

If the above embed doesn't work, you can listen here.

"Man of Steel" Donald Wexler, desert modern icon, dies at 89

2015-06-29T15:31:00-04:00

'His signature style helped bring Palm Springs to the international stage and his body of work is still as fresh today as when first created...'

Aptly nicknamed a "man of steel", Desert Modern-style architect Donald Wexler was known for his affordable sleek steel homes and was one of the principal figures who influenced Palm Springs' iconic modernist aesthetic that has increased in popularity in the last 15 years or so, attracting thousands of visitors from around the world. Described by close colleagues as a modest and insightful man, Wexler passed away at the age of 89 this past Friday, June 26 in his Palm Desert home. The Desert Sun reports that he died after dealing with an undisclosed brief illness.

Born on Jan. 23, 1926 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Wexler made his way to Southern California after graduating from the University of Minnesota. In California, Wexler worked as an apprentice for Richard Neutra for nine months before moving to Palm Springs when he landed a job in William Francis Cody's firm. In 1952, Wexler established Wexler & Harrison with Richard Harrison, a colleague he met at Cody's firm, but the two w...

California's desert resorts struggle to abide by drought measures while maintaining a lush 'oasis' look

2015-06-11T14:39:00-04:00

For decades, tourists have been coming to Southern California's Coachella Valley, drawn by spectacular mountain vistas, great weather and lush landscapes. Those landscapes have been, for the most part, man-made — an artificial oasis in a land of desert. [...] As California enters a fourth year of drought and state and local water officials unveil a series of conservation dictates, at least some hotels in the valley — big and small — have begun launching water conservation measures.

Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!