The First Church of Christ, Scientist was commissioned by the local Christian Science congregation and completed in 1957 by Albert Frey and Robson C. Chambers. Christian Science maintained a substantial presence in Southern California during the mid-century period, and its churches frequently showcased ambitious modern architecture. The denomination's auditorium-centered, imagery-free worship tradition gave modernist architects unusual creative freedom in solving the spatial requirements of religious gathering.
The building is contemporary with Fire Station No. 1, also designed by Frey and Chambers in 1957, demonstrating the partnership's range across civic and religious commissions during this productive period. Together with St. Theresa Catholic Church designed by John Porter Clark eleven years later, the two buildings represent major desert modernist approaches to sacred space for different denominational traditions.
