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Richard Neutra
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Richard Joseph Neutra (April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) is considered one of modernism's most important architects.
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[edit] Biography
Neutra was born in Vienna. He studied under Adolf Loos at the Technical University of Vienna, was influenced by Otto Wagner, and worked for a time in Germany in the studio of Erich Mendelsohn. He moved to the United States by 1923 and became a naturalized citizen in 1929. Neutra worked briefly for Frank Lloyd Wright before accepting an invitation from his close friend and university companion Rudolf Schindler to work and live communally in Schindler's Kings Road House in California.
In California, he became celebrated for rigorously geometric but airy structures that represented a West Coast variation on the mid-century modern residence. In the early 1930s, Neutra's Los Angeles practice trained several young architects who went on to independent success, including Gregory Ain, Harwell Hamilton Harris, and Raphael Soriano.
He was famous for the attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients, regardless of the size of the project, in contrast to other architects eager to impose their artistic vision on a client. Neutra sometimes used detailed questionnaires to discover his client's needs, much to their surprise. His domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape and practical comfort.
Neutra had a sharp sense of irony. In his autobiography, Life and Shape, he included a playful anecdote about an anonymous movie producer-client who electrified the moat around the house that Neutra designed for him and had his Persian butler fish out the bodies in the morning and dispose of them in a specially designed incinerator. This was a much-embellished account of an actual client, Josef von Sternberg, who indeed had a moated house but not an electrified one.
There is a story about Ayn Rand, the second owner of the von Sternberg house in the San Fernando Valley (now destroyed), told by Neutra's contractor Fordyce "Red" Marsh: Once when Neutra took a group of people to see the von Sternberg house, she spotted the tall, handsome Red for the first time. She brushed past Neutra and grabbed the unsuspecting Red by the shoulders, exclaiming: "You are the physical embodiment of Howard Roark!" Red knew nothing of the hero architect of Rand's famous novel The Fountainhead and its architect-hero Howard Roark and was bewildered by her actions. Neutra, feeling excluded, gathered up his group and left. (A photo of Neutra and Rand at the home was famously captured by Julius Shulman.)
Neutra died in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1970.
[edit] Legacy
Neutra's son Dion has kept the Silverlake offices designed and built by his father open as "Richard and Dion Neutra Architecture" in Los Angeles. The Neutra Office Building is itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The revival in the late 90s of mid-century modernism has given new cachet to his work. Along with Lautner and Schindler, Neutra properties have become trophies for a wide variety of Los Angeles celebrities, from hair stylist Vidal Sassoon and ex-Gucci and YSL head Tom Ford, actress Kelly Lynch and her screenwriter husband Mitch Glazer, to personalities such as XL clothing line founder Eli Bonerz, DEVO musician Gerald Casale (paid $2 million for Kun House #1, 1936, in 2008) and hardcore punk musician Jonathan Anastas (Bonnet House, 1941). Prices have topped $4 million for the Case Study House #20, and $6 million for the Singleton House (purchased by Mr. Sassoon in 2004 — the Singleton house is now back on the market, post renovation, at $20 million dollars). The famed Kaufmann house in Palm Springs was auctioned by Christies for almost $20 million dollars in the summer of 2008, only to fall out of escrow. Kaufmann is back on the open market at nearly $14 million
[edit] Selected works
- Jardinette Apartments, 1928, Hollywood, California
- Lovell House, 1929, Los Angeles, California
- Von Sternberg House, 1935, San Fernando Valley
- Van der Leeuw House (VDL Research House), 1932, Los Angeles, California
- The Neutra House Project, 1935, Restoration of the Neutra "Orchard House" in Los Altos, California
- Kun House, 1936, Los Angeles, California
- Miller House[1], 1937, Palm Springs, California
- Windshield House[2], 1938, Fisher's Island, New York
- Emerson Junior High School, 1938, West Los Angeles, California
- Strathmore Apartments, 1938, Westwood, Los Angeles, California
- Ward-Berger House, 1939, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California
- Bonnet House, 1941, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California
- Kaufmann Desert House[3][4], 1946, Palm Springs, California
- Bailey House, 1946, Santa Monica, California
- Case Study Houses #6 and #13
- Helburn House, 1950, Bozeman, Montana
- Neutra Office Building — Neutra's design studio from 1950 to 1970
- Moore House, 1952, Ojai, California (received AIA award)
- Troxell House[5], 1956, Pacific Palisades, California
- Mellon Hall and Francis Scott Key Auditorium, 1958, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland
- Perkins House,1952–55, Pasadena, California
- Garden Grove Community Church, 1959 (Fellowship Hall and Offices), 1961 (Sanctuary), 1968 (Tower of Hope), Garden Grove, California
- Three Senior Officer's Quarters on Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, 1959
- Bond House, 1960, San Diego, California
- R.J. Neutra Elementary, 1960, Naval Air Station Lemoore, in Lemoore, California (designed in 1929).
- Gettysburg Cyclorama Center, 1962, Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
- Mariners Medical Arts, 1963, Newport Beach, California
- Painted Desert Visitor Center, 1963, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
- United States Embassy, 1963, Karachi, Pakistan
- Kuhns House, 1964, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California
- VDL II Research House[6][7][8], 1964,(rebuilt with son Dion Neutra) Los Angeles, California
- Delcourt House, 1968–69, Croix, Nord, France
 Cyclorama Building, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania |
,_Hollywood.JPG.html) Jardinette Apartments, Hollywood |
 Kaufmann House, Palm Springs, California. |
[edit] Publications by Neutra
- 1927: Wie Baut Amerika? (How America Builds) (Julius Hoffman)
- 1935: "New Elementary Schools for America". Architectural Forum 65 (no. 1): 25–36. January 1935.
- 1951: Mysteries and Realities of the Site (Morgan & Morgan)
- 1954: Survival Through Design (Oxford University Press)
- 1962: Life and Shape: an Autobiography (Appleton-Century-Crofts)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Leet, Stephen (2004). Richard Neutra's Miller House. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1568982747.
- ^ Neumann, Dietrich, ed. (2001). Richard Neutra's Windshield House. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300092032.
- ^ Wyatt, Edward (October 31, 2007). "A Landmark Modernist House Heads to Auction". New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
- ^ Judith Gura (May 1, 2008), Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House, ARTINFO, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/27440/richard-neutras-kaufmann-house/, retrieved on 14 May 2008
- ^ Troxell Residence at LandLiving.com
- ^ Eastman, Janet (April 17, 2008). "The clock is ticking for Richard Neutra's VDL Research House II". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
- ^ Ayyüce, Orhan (Mar 17, 2008). "Neutra's VDL House; v. Hard Times". archinect.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
- ^ VDL House website by Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design
[edit] Other sources
- McCoy, Esther (1960). Five California Architects. Reinhold Publishing.
- reprinted in 1975 by Praeger
- Hines, Thomas (1982). Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195030281.
- reprinted in 1994 by the University of California Press
- reprinted in 2006 by Rizzoli Publications
- Lavin, Sylvia (Dec. 1999). "Open the Box: Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the Domestic Environment". Assemblage 40: 6–25.
- Lamprecht, Barbara (2000). Richard Neutra: Complete Works. Taschen. ISBN 3822866229.
- Lamprecht, Barbara (2004). Richard Neutra, 1892–1970: Survival Through Design. Taschen. ISBN 3822827738.
- Lavin, Sylvia (2005). Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture. MIT Press. ISBN 0262122685.
[edit] External links
- Finding Aid for the Richard and Dion Neutra Papers, Special Collections, Young Research Library, UCLA.
- Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design
- Neutra at GreatBuildings.com
- Neutra at modernsandiego.com
- Neutra biography at r20thcentury.com
- info and photos from Winkens.ie
- History, plans and photographs of the VDL I & VDL II Research Houses Tours of the house are available on Saturdays between 11 and 3pm. Check website to confirm house is open (based on Cal Poly Pomona University schedule.)
