Shvartzberg, Manuel
Description
"Built in 1960, the Aguas Calientes Spa in Palm Springs was considered an apex of American mid-century design, marking the high desert of Palm Springs
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as a center of upper-class leisure built on Indigenous land. When the Spa was slated to be demolished by the Agua Caliente tribe in 2014 due to structural damage, there was significant outcry from elites looking to preserve the building as an architectural landmark. In Inland Empire, architectural historian Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió. uses the case of the Aguas Caliente Spa and other sites like it to show how modernist architecture shored up settler hegemony during a period when Native American territorial sovereignty was being legally terminated at unprecedented levels. Within this modernist architectural design paradigm, developers exploited Indigenous land and laid claim to the water supply, while appropriating and resignifying Indigenous aesthetics and sensibilities. Through extensive archival research and dialogue with the Cahuilla community, Shvartzberg Carrió shows how modernist architecture promoted the settler colonial idea that desert land was empty and therefore available for the taking. Simultaneously, Inland Empire chronicles fierce Indigenous resistance to appropriation and assimilation"-- Provided by publisher.
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