Richard Neutra

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Richard Neutra on the cover of Time Magazine, August 15, 1949.
Richard Neutra on the cover of Time Magazine, August 15, 1949.

Richard Joseph Neutra (April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) is considered one of modernism's most important architects.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Neutra was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1892. He studied under Adolf Loos, 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 midcentury 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 great attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients, whether he was commissioned to build a simple house or a mansion. This was in contrast with other general architects, who would often do everything to impose their artistic vision on a client, regardless of what was really needed to create a home. He would sometimes use detailed questionnaires to find out exactly what the owners would need, much to the surprise of many of his clients. His domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape and practical comfort.

Neutra had a sharp sense of irony. For example, in his autobiography, Life and Shape, he included an 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.)

The revival in the late 90s of mid-century modernism has given new cachet to his work, as it's become (along with Lautner and Schindler's) trophy property for wide variety of Los Angeles pop culture, arts and media figures from hair stylist Vidal Sassoon and ex-Gucci and YSL head Tom Ford, actress Kelly Lynch and her screenwriter husband Mitch Glazer to more cutting-edge 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 Case Study 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).

Neutra died in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1970.

Neutra's son Dion has kept the Silverlake office open as "Richard and Dion Neutra Architecture" in Los Angeles. The Neutra Office Building is itself listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was designed and built by Neutra, and is currently on the market for $3.1 million dollars.

[edit] Selected works

Kaufmann House, Palm Springs, California. (Photo taken 2000.)
Kaufmann House, Palm Springs, California. (Photo taken 2000.)

[edit] Publications by Neutra

  • 1927: Wie Baut Amerika? (How America Builds) (Julius Hoffman)
  • 1935: "New Elementary Schools for America" (January 1935). Architectural Forum 65 (no. 1): 25-36. 
  • 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

  1. ^ Leet, Stephen (2004). Richard Neutra's Miller House. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1568982747. 
  2. ^ Neumann, Dietrich, ed. (2001). Richard Neutra's Windshield House. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300092032. 
  3. ^ Wyatt, Edward (October 31, 2007). A Landmark Modernist House Heads to Auction. New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
  4. ^ 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 
  5. ^ Troxell Residence at LandLiving.com
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ Ayyüce, Orhan (Mar 17, 2008). Neutra's VDL House; v. Hard Times. archinect.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
  8. ^ 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