Seven is more than a number; it’s a cycle. In these years the desert has stripped away my distractions, handed me stillness, and taught me to watch life unfold on a different scale. It remains a place profoundly ruled by nature, no matter how popular it appears on the surface. Here, under a vast sky, I’ve learned that sometimes you have to step away from the known world and let the wilderness transform you.

There is a kind of poetry in a house that looks like it fell from the sky, because in many ways, the Mojave itself feels like another world. The Monument House does not try to disappear into the desert; it does not borrow the sun-bleached palette of sand and stone. Instead, it stands in vivid contrast—red, green, and blue against a landscape of ochre and sage, its angular pavilions rising from the boulders like a visitor from another time.

And yet, it belongs. Not in the way we expect homes to belong, through imitation or subtlety, but in the way a boulder belongs, or a Joshua tree—by simply being there, unmovable, unbothered by the passage of time. I still pass it often, catching glimpses of it in my periphery. And each time, it reminds me that architecture, like the desert itself, does not need permission to exist.

There is a kind of poetry in a house that looks like it fell from the sky, because in many ways, the Mojave itself feels like another world. The Monument House does not try to disappear into the desert; it does not borrow the sun-bleached palette of sand and stone. Instead, it stands in vivid contrast—red, green, and blue against a landscape of ochre and sage, its angular pavilions rising from the boulders like a visitor from another time.

And yet, it belongs. Not in the way we expect homes to belong, through imitation or subtlety, but in the way a boulder belongs, or a Joshua tree—by simply being there, unmovable, unbothered by the passage of time. I still pass it often, catching glimpses of it in my periphery. And each time, it reminds me that architecture, like the desert itself, does not need permission to exist.

Explore the most engaging and impactful social media posts from Joshua Tree National Park in 2024, crafted by photographer and content creator Paul Martinez.