The Californian photographer beautifully captures vintage cars sheltered under the famous carports of modernist residences in Palm Springs in sunlit compositions where past and present meet.

Dan Chavkin invites us on a journey through time, viewed through the lens of carports, those car shelters attached to residential buildings. His temporal anchor is his love for Californian modernism and vintage cars.
It was through his encounters with a lineage of owners, who contribute to the preservation of this iconic style, that this California native decided to focus his attention on this essential element. These carports evoke the idea of ​​having a photogenic, glorious, and fully restored vintage car as an occupant. “They are synonymous,” explains Dan Chavkin. “A symbiotic dance of architecture and automotive design.”

His project took shape when he captured, in Vista Las Palmas, a silver 1971 Mercedes 280SL parked under the carport of the Alexander House, designed by Dan Palmer & William Krisel in 1959. I was immediately drawn to the way the post-and-beam architecture of the house complemented the car. »

BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND FUNCTIONALITY

In his superb series, Dan Chavkin plays with color combinations and contrasts, shapes and lines, landscape and sky, materials and structures. In this selection, he immortalizes a bright red 1964 Corvette Sting Ray, parked at the Smith residence in Yucca Valley, built by Arthur Edward Gerpheide in 1961. Elsewhere, a 1959 Dodge Royal Lancer shelters from the sun at the Canyon View Estates complex, designed by Dan Palmer and William Krisel in 1962.

Further on, the blue of a 1967 Simca 1000 coupé blends with the clear sky, contrasting with the yellow of the Cree House, designed by Albert Frey in 1955. The same is true for the 1969 Mercedes-Benz 280SL with its cobalt blue hue, which shelters under the palm trees of the James Logan Abernathy Residence, designed by William F. Cody in 1962.

Elsewhere, the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado, housed in the Country Club Estates designed by A. Quincy Jones in 1965, proudly displays its bodywork against the backdrop of the desert. The same can be said of the 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88, with its Floridian flair, tucked away in the Royal Hawaiian Estates, created in 1960 by Donald Wexler and Richard Harrison. As for the Edsel Ranger, its form cleverly plays with the curves and pine walls of a 1960s home built by architect Hugh Kaptur in Palm Springs.

LOVER OF MODERNISM

This graduate of the prestigious ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena continues to celebrate modernism in all its facets. While he began his career in New York, shooting celebrity portraits for major magazines, he returned to the Golden State to pursue his passion. In the meantime, this devotee of mid-century modern has amassed a collection of furniture, objects, ceramics, and works of art.

In fifteen years, Dan Chavkin has published several books on this architectural paradise in Palm Springs, such as Hand-In-Hand (about designers Evelyn and Jerome Ackerman), Unseen Midcentury Desert Modern (about the almost inaccessible buildings in the desert), Star Trek: Designing the Final Frontier (about the design of the original 1966 series), or Architectural Pottery (about the Californian company of the 1950s).

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