352nd star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars to be awarded today
Architect A. Quincy Jones will posthumously receive the 352nd star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars today.
The 2 p.m. dedication ceremony is being held during Modernism Week, an 11-day celebration of mid-century modern design, architecture and culture in Palm Springs. It started Thursday and runs through Feb. 24.
Jones, who died in 1979, was a Los Angeles-based architect and educator who pioneered planning and design of greenbelts — common park areas in housing developments — and was the designer of Ambassador Walter Annenberg’s Rancho Mirage home.
He brought style and landscaping to California tract homes and introduced new materials, according to Walk of Stars officials. His houses, churches, civic and university buildings are considered “quintessential” examples of mid-century American architecture, they say.
Jones opened his Los Angeles office in 1945 after serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II. He and Paul Williams contributed to the modernist development of Palm Springs through the Tennis Club addition in 1946, Town & Country Center in 1947 and Romanoff’s on the Rocks nightclub in 1950.
Starting in 1950, Jones worked with developer Joseph Eichler on several projects throughout California. It was through that relationship that Jones was able to implement his concept of greenbelts in housing developments, according to the Walk of Stars.
Jones was a professor and later dean at the University of Southern California School of Architecture, from 1951 through 1967. In the 1960s Jones designed campus buildings and larger office buildings. In 1964, he designed Annenberg’s 32,000-square-foot home as part of the successful publisher’s Sunnylands estate.
