(1903-1998)

In the late twenties, during his stint in the studio of Le Corbusier, Albert Frey shared the drawing board with both Charlotte Perriand and Josep Lluís Sert. However, the work of this Swiss-born, American-national is commonly linked with the Californian heroic period of architecture. In the Aluminaire House designed with A. Lawrence- Kocher for the Allied Arts and Building Products Exhibition in New York in 1931, Frey imposed his fascination for lightweight technology and new materials on a project also influenced by the Corbusian villas. It is this interest in industrial and standardized construction systems that defines his work, generally located in the Californian desert and on the outskirts of Palm Springs, where he set up home and where he died on 14 November. In the first house that he designed for himself Frey used a futurist imagery, but his second home was conceived as a delicate glass and steel box placed upon monumental masonry which blends easily into the landscape. A house for the designer Raymond Loewy and a cable car station with a glider-wing shaped roof are also among his best known works.