Richard Neutra

One of the things we like best about blogging is that we get to introduce you to our favorite products, people, and projects. One of our favorite architects is Richard Neutra. Considered one of the most prominent modernist architects, Neutra was a native of Austria who relocated to the US West Coast when he was an adult. We admire his work and consider it to be the epitome of mid-century modern architecture.

Richard Neutra’s Life

Architect Richard Josef Neutra was born in 1892 in Vienna, Austria where he studied under Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner. Later he studied in Switzerland and worked in Germany under Erich Mendelsohn. He married Dione Niedermann in 1922 and the couple subsequently had three children; Dion, Raymond, and Frank Lloyd. Dion became an architect and his father’s partner.

Neutra moved from Europe to the US in 1923, living for a short time in New York, Chicago, and Spring Green, WI. In 1924, he briefly worked for Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesen in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Soon he moved to Los Angeles where he spent the majority of his career. He partnered with fellow Austrian Rudolf Schindler and he worked with many other architects over the course of his career, including his son and partner Dion in 1965. In 1929, Neutra became a naturalized citizen of the US.

In 1932, he built his own home and studio, the Van der Leeuw Research House, in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. After it was destroyed by fire in 1963, Neutra and Dion rebuilt the house on the original foundation but incorporated many new and innovative ideas and materials.

In 1949, Neutra was highlighted on the cover of Time Magazine and the magazine ranked him second only to his former employer, Frank Lloyd Wright. From that time on, Neutra enjoyed great popularity and many commissions.

He was also a guest lecturer and spent his career designing homes, apartments, commercial buildings, and schools. But Neutra is best known for his designs of modern single-family California residences. Today, he is probably the best-known Mid-Century Modern style architect. In spite of his popularity and prolific career, a number of his buildings have been razed over the years.

He retired from practice in 1968 and died in 1970 in Germany at the age of 78.

Richard Neutra’s Architecture

Characteristics of Neutra’s Designs

Clean, crisp modernism
Open floor plans
Flexibility
Connection with Nature
Simple Geometry
Personalized
Embraces Technology
Responds to the Landscape
Airy and Light
Visual Sense of Space
Transparency
Climate Sensitive
Adaptability
Responsive to client needs/desires

Neutra’s Lovell Health House

Our favorite Neutra project is the Lovell Health House, an International Style masterpiece in the Loz Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. He designed this project for Philip Lovell, a naturopathic physician, and his wife Leah. Lovell wanted the home to be an architectural statement of what would be healthy for a human being. A subsequent owner of the house described it this way: “the architecture is the view from inside” and “nature is always there”.

The 4,800 s.f. three-level modern home is situated on a steep hillside site of nearly half an acre. It was positioned to maximize light and sweeping views of the hills and city below. The Lovell House’s lightweight steel frame was shop-fabricated and assembled on the site in less than 40 hours. The 5-bedroom house is faced with planes of gunite over insulation and large areas of operable glass.

Built nearly a century ago in 1929, the design was revolutionary for the time and very different than the Mediterranean-style homes common in LA. It was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s Modern Architecture exhibit in 1932 and the national and international exposure really launched Neutra’s career.

The home has been featured in several films, including LA Confidential. According to real estate sources, for the first time since 1961, the Lovell Health House is for sale.

Recognition of Richard Neutra

Curators Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock included Neutra in the 1932 MoMA exhibition on modern architecture.
In 1949, Time Magazine featured Neutra on the cover of its August issue and said this about his designs: “Their beauty, like that of any sea shell, is more than skin-deep—practical, not pretentious.”
In 1977, the AIA awarded Neutra with the Gold Medal posthumously.
In 2015, he was recognized with a star on the Walk of Stars in Palm Springs, CA.
Several of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
It’s believed that author Ayn Rand based her character, Howard Roark, from the 1943 book The Fountainhead partly on Neutra.
Christian Schwartz’s 2002 geometric san-serif typeface Neutraface was influenced by Neutra’s designs.

Learn more about Richard Neutra from the LA Conservancy here.

Check out our other blogs featuring famous architects:

Zaha Hadid – https://bleckarchitects.com/architect-zaha-hadid/

Paul Williams – https://bleckarchitects.com/paul-williams-architect/

Frank Lloyd Wright – https://bleckarchitects.com/famous-architect-frank-lloyd-wright/