Richard Neutra, HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE, SEM IV

1. RICHARD NEUTRA

2. EARLY LIFE
RichardJoseph Neutra was a Jewish
Austrian-American architect. Living and
building for the majority of his career in
Southern California, he came to be
considered among the most prominent
and important modernist architects.
BORN: April 19,1892 inVienna
DIED : April 16, 1970.
AWARDS: Wilhelm Exner
Medal (1959)
AIA Gold Medal (1977)

3.  One of the most influential architects of the twentieth century, Richard Neutra
helped define modernism in Southern California and around the world.
 Neutra developed an early interest in architecture, particularly the work of Otto
Wagner.
 Neutra worked in Europe for several years and apprenticed with the great Erich
Mendelsohn.
 He moved on to Chicago, spent several months inWright’sTaliesin studio in
Wisconsin, and arrived in Los Angeles in 1925.
 Neutra opened his own practice and soon won his first major commission—from one
of Schindler’s clients, Philip Lovell.The 1929 Lovell House in Los Feliz was a great
achievement in steel-frame construction, with living spaces seemingly floating above
the steep hillside.

4. PROFESSIONAL
CAREER
• Shortly after World War II, Neutra created
his most memorable works: the Kaufmann
Desert House, Palm Springs, Calif. (1946–
47), and the Tremaine House, Santa
Barbara, Calif. (1947–48)
• During the 1950s and ’60s Neutra’s works
included office buildings, churches,
buildings for colleges and universities,
housing projects, and cultural centres.
After 1966 he was in partnership with his
son, the firm name becoming Richard and
Dion Neutra Architects and Associates.
He died while on a tour of Europe.
Neutra’s most important early work was
the Lovell House, Los Angeles (1927–29),
which has glass expanses and cable-
suspended balconies and is stylistically
similar to the work of Le
Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe in Europe. Throughout the 1930s he
designed houses in the International Style.
PHASEIPHASEIIPHASEIII
Survival Through
Design (1954), Life and
Human Habitat (1956), and
an autobiography, Life and
Shape (1962).
HISVOLUMINOUSWRITINGS

5. ELEGANT AND
PRECISE
REFLECTION
OFTHE
OWNERS
PERSONALITY
STYLE
ARCHITECTURAL
STYLE
PATIOS
AND
PORCHES
INTERNATIONAL
STYLE
HARMONY
WITH
NATURE

6. PHILOSOPHY
• Neutra experimented constantly. He
embraced technology, oddly
enough, as a way to connect man
with nature.
• His philosophy of “biorealism”
sought to use biological sciences in
architecture “so that design
exploited, with great sophistication,
the realm of the senses and an
interconnectedness to nature that
he believed fundamental and
requisite to human well-being”.

7. LOVELL HOUSE
The Lovell House was the turning point in Neutra’s career, putting him on the
architectural radar.

8. The Lovell House
was designed for
the active, health
conscious Lovell
family in the hills
of Los
Angeles. The
house is an early
example of the
International Style
in the United
States that evokes
principles that
were developed
by Le Corbusier
and Frank Lloyd
Wright.

9. The house consists of a
series of overlapping planes
that do not stick to Wright’s
proportionality; rather they
are a hybrid of Wright’s
planar devices combined
with Le Corbusier’s stark,
streamlined aesthetic.
The house clings to the side
of a steep cliff; it is
perpendicularly suspended
to take on the panoramic
views of Los Angeles. Since
the house is suspended
perpendicularly, the volume
of the house is
disconnected from the
street, which is bridged by a
concrete walkway that
brings the inhabitant into
the upper level of the
house, which is the living
quarters, and issues them
down a large staircase

10. The lower level of the
house, the living room,
follows an open plan that
leads out to the patio and
swimming pool. It’s
outside near the pool that
one begins to understand
the spatial organization of
the overlapping planes and
the pilotis that support the
cantilevering volumes.
The Lovell House is
reminiscent of Le
Corbusier’s style and
aesthetic. The stark while
walls stand out among the
wooded terrain; the ribbon
windows offer expansive
views and a significant
amount of light to enter
the interior spaces.

11. It’s clear that Neutra
was influenced by the
International Style
and Corbusier’s villas,
so much so that the
way in which one
enters and moves
through the house is
similar to Corbusier’s
architectural
promenade; however
rather than ending at
the roof garden the
occupant moves from
the top of the house
towards the patio and
swimming pool on
the lower level.

12. The Lovell House
is claimed to be
the first house in
the United States
to use a steel
structure that is
typically found in
skyscraper
construction –
Neutra learned
these new
techniques when
he was working in
New York and
with Holabird &
Roche in Chicago

17. VDL RESEARCH
HOUSE

18. In 1932, Richard
Neutra built his house
thanks to a donation
from the Dutch
philanthropist DrVan
Der Leeuw (hence the
acronymVDL).
Seven years later, when the
family had grown, he built an
annex in the garden. In 1963,
the house was devastated by
fire, leaving only the annex
standing. At that time, Richard
Neutra and his son and
colleague Dion Neutra rebuilt
the house and added a
solarium/atrium on top of the
original structure.

19. “Traditional Japanese
architecture is
horizontal; space is
exclusively horizontal.
Without a defined
centre or axis, it
extends as an
aggregate of rooms of
equal value, none of
which is complete
except in relation to
the others. The space
is flexible and
transferable, without
a fixed function. The
use of the rooms
varies over the course
of the day and
throughout the year.”
~ RICHARD NEUTRA

22. GRACE MILLERS
HOUSE
PALM SPRINGS

23. Grace Miller House remains one of
the architect's most deliberate and
utilitarian residential spaces.
Completed in 1937, just as the
architect had gained international
fame for his work in and around Los
Angeles, the house was an
experiment in customization, a
design dedicated to modernism's
programmatic possibilities. His
earliest commission in the
California desert, the Miller House
may seem unremarkable in size, but
its design, a small machine for
living wholly devoted to Miller's
daily routine, reflects the unique
relationship between architect and
client and the complex process of
constructing a modern home.

24. Though the Miller House might not
be the most formally innovative
Neutra design, it does offer rare
insight into a somewhat unusual
architect/client relationship. Sharing
an affinity for a minimal aesthetic
and the belief that architecture plays
a role in improving the human
condition, Neutra and Miller worked
together to construct a desert home
with a truly modern psyche. Lengthy
correspondence between the two
demonstrates a design process
steeped in mutual respect, idealism,
and the complex cultural conditions
of the era. In the design for the
home, Neutra weaved his own
theoretical modernism with Miller's
progressive attitude, creating a
highly personal work of art- and a
seminal moment in the history of
desert modernism.

26. KAUFMANNS
DESERT HOUSE

27. One of Neutra’s several iconic
projects is the Kaufmann House
in Palm Springs, California.
Completed between 1946-1947,
the Kaufmann House was a
vacation home for Edgar J.
Kaufmann Sr. and his family to
escape the harsh winters of the
northeast.
The design of the house is quite
simplistic; at the center of the
house is the living room and the
dining room that is the heart of
the house and the family
activity.The rest of the house
branches out like a pinwheel in
each of the cardinal directions.

28. The house’s swimming pool is one of
the most iconic and recognizable
aspects of the Kaufmann House;
however, it is not solely a photographic
gem or simply a recreational
feature. The swimming pool creates a
compositional balance of the overall
design of the house. The house alone is
unbalanced and heavy as the wings are
not equally proportioned, but with the
addition and placement of the
swimming pool there is a cohesive
balance and harmony throughout the
design.
The floating effect is emphasized
through a series of sliding glass doors
that open up to cover walkways or
patios.The way in which Neutra
designed the Kaufmann House was
such that when the sliding glass doors
were opened the differentiation of
interior and exterior was blurred as if it
was a sinuous space.

31. JAMES D. MOORE
HOUSE

32. THIS IS AN AWARD WINNING
HOUSE, FROM AMERICAN
INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS IN
1954
THE SITUATES ON A
MOUNTAIN SLOPE, IN LUSH
GREEN VEGETATION.
IT IS A MINIMUM PAVILION,
ELEGANTLY CRAFTED WITH
THIN PLANES AND GLASS,
WHICH ENABLES
CONNECTION BETWEEN
INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR
SPACES.
LUSH GREEN VEGETATION
AND WATER POOL
SURROUNDS THE HOUSE

33. The structure is in
line for sketching
and pulling up the
exterior and the
pond, so the
structure also
becomes the part of
landscape.
The entire structure
is made of wood, the
walls are composed
of brackets.

34. UNBUILT CASE
STUDY

36. SKETCHES

37. PAPER CLIPPINGS

38. THANK YOU!
MANITEJA,
SRINIVAS
ABHIGNA
CHAITANYA
TOYAJAKSHA