“Insights into Architecture,” inspired by architectural photographer Ezra Stoller (1915–2004), who is known for chronicling modernist architecture from the late 1930s to the 1970s was on display at the Palm Springs Art Museum from May 25 to October 6.

To comment on Stoller’s photographs, his ability to capture the life and lines of a building is like witnessing a green flash. There is a moment of space, time and structure held in his frames. In his photograph of the Salk Institute (Louis Kahn, architect) it hides the iconic rhythmic symmetry, and instead focuses on the materiality and light of the architecture. Another photograph of the McMath Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak in Arizona (Myron Goldsmith, SOM architects) centers the crystalline-shaped arm of the building and pushes your eye to look out into infinity. Scale and context are heightened by the blur of a person standing near the base. Other images on display include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water house and the World’s Fair Finnish Pavilion by Alvar Aalto, which is said to have jump-started Stoller’s career in 1939.