FOREVER À L.A. MOD
THE CONSUMMATE LOS ANGELES ARCHITECT CELEBRATES THE BIG 1-2-5!
Richard Neutra, the consummate LA architect, celebrates his big 1-2-5!
Forget Lautner, Ain, and FLW Jr.: It was architect Richard Neutra (1892–1970) who most successfully envisioned modern LA in his structures. Among the most influential modernist architects practicing in America (and, like his contemporary—and close friend and collaborator—Rudolph Schindler, an Austrian born in Vienna), Neutra completed dozens of buildings in Southern California during the middle of the 20th century, pioneering the International Style along the way. Most known for his residences—including Lovell House (completed in 1929, six years after Neutra moved to the States) at the base of the Hollywood Hills, Kronish House (1955) on Sunset Boulevard, Singleton House (1959) in Bel-Air, and Kaufmann House (1946), his Palm Springs masterpiece—Neutra also anointed a scattering of civic structures with his long, clean lines and sharp, perpendicular planes,
most notably the Los Angeles County Hall of Records (1962) in DTLA and the Neutra Office Building (1950) in Silver Lake. The latter served as the architect’s office for his last two decades, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, and was inaugurated as a museum in 2014. To this day, the 55-year-old Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design, named after the architect’s 1954 book espousing eco-conscious building, lives on in Silver Lake under the stewardship of Neutra’s son, Dion, himself an acclaimed LA-based architect who started training with his father at the age of 11. Through its nonprofit work, the Institute maintains Neutra’s legacy, and reminds the city of the buildings that defined its structural zeitgeist. After all, you can never look too often at a classic… neutra.org