Tucson Modernism Week returns with a sleeker design

Tucson Modernism Week, the annual celebration of the city’s midcentury roots, will look a little different this year.

The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation is scaling its number of events back, as it returns to an all in-person format for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

“We are taking this year to redefine how we are going to continue to present this program,” said Demion Clinco, CEO of the foundation. “Rather than having a lot of content, we’ve really focused on some incredible opportunities with which the community can engage.”

Highlights include:

Ignite at Night, an evening surrounded by the neon signage of Tucson’s past at the Ignite Sign Art Museum, 331 S. Olsen Ave., from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 10. ($15).

A free lecture on Friday, Nov. 11, on Mexican brochure design from 1940 through 1965, given by William L. Bird, curator emeritus with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The lecture runs from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Tucson Creative Dance Center, 3131 N. Cherry Ave. (reservations are required).

A trip to explore the architecture and design of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, on Saturday, Nov. 12. (sold out as of press time).

“We are really interested in exploring the relationship between northern Sonora and Southern Arizona in the post-WWII period,” Clinco said. “Nogales became such an important port for the transfer of people and goods, midcentury. The architecture of both sides began to express the growing importance of these cities in the 20th century.

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“Today, we really think of the border as being such a definitive wall. You have to imagine that it was far more permeable in the middle of the 20th century. The design and influence of these different ideas happening in the U.S. and Mexico were flowing back and forth in a more robust way.”

A cocktail party at a home designed by architect Arthur T. Brown, recently restored in the Colonia Solana neighborhood ($150 per person). The soiree, running from 5:30 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 12, will include a fashion presentation featuring the designs of Ann Edwards.

“Ann had a women’s fashion store in Tucson in the mid-20th century,” Clinco said. “Through the dispensation of her estate, many of the pieces of clothing that she sold, her best examples, were donated to the Preservation Foundation.”

Clinco said all of the programming developed for Modernism Week reflects Tucson’s importance as an epicenter of design thinking in the 20th century.

“There were only a few places in the American Southwest that had these large concentrations of artists, designers, craftsmen, architects,” he said.

Modernism Week runs through Sunday, Nov. 13. For a full schedule, visit preservetucson.org.