Outstanding architecture requires two components: a gifted architect and an engaged client. Together they embark on a project that demands trust, imagination, and a shared vision. In the 20th century, women such as Grace Miller, a Saint Louis socialite, and Trina Turk, fashion designer, embarked on architecture and restoration projects, while moguls like Walter and Lenore Annenberg worked with architect A. Quincy Jones and interior designer Billy Haines, to create the estate and gardens at Sunnylands. Numerous movie stars such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, and Dinah Shore employed architects to create the ideal desert retreat they sought; decades later their homes are still celebrated as sublime works of art.

Focusing on the residences that resulted from these collaborations of client and architect, Sidney Williams will show the variety of spectacular architecture that stemmed from these relationships.

Sidney Williams was director of education and public programs before becoming curator of architecture and design at the Palm Springs Art Museum from 2003 to 2016. She was the founding curator of the Architecture and Design Center after an historic rehabilitation of a 1961 bank building which opened in 2014. Her curatorial projects included co-curating with Dr. Lauren Bricker, Steel and Shade: The Architecture of Donald Wexler (2011, with catalogue) and a retrospective, with accompanying catalogue, of the museum’s architect entitled, An Eloquent Modernist: E. Stewart Williams, Architect, 2014. Sidney was an exhibition advisor for the Getty Los Angeles/Latin America exhibition, In Search of Living Architecture: Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi, 2017. Currently, she is active in the Palm Springs Architectural Alliance that focuses on fostering the legacy of Palm Springs’s architectural excellence into the future. A member of the City of Palm Springs Historic Site Preservation Board for six years, Sidney served three years as chair. As a board member of Modernism Week for eight years, she was part of the team who developed and produced the multi-faceted programming. Sidney is the recipient of several awards: an honorary membership in the AIA, Desert Chapter; an honoree at the UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, 50th Anniversary Celebration, Palm Springs Modern Architecture Advocates; and the DOCOMOMO Preservation Award for the rehabilitation of the Architecture and Design Center. Born in Vancouver, she holds a BA in art history from the University of British Columbia and a MA in art history from UCLA.