Think Neutra and immediately the Richard Neutra homes spring to mind and his immense contribution to Californian Modernism. But there is so much more to Neutra, a man who drew inspiration from pre-war Hapsburg Vienna to create an architectural vocabulary for the Hollywood elite and baby-boomer Southern California.

Richard Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, Vienna, Austria on the  8th April 1908 to an educated, comfortably off Jewish family. He attended the Sophiengymnasium in Vienna and later the Vienna University of Technology, the Technische Universität Wien, where his teachers included Karl Mayreder and Max Fabiani. He studied with Adolphe Loos and was a huge fan of and highly influenced by Otto Wagner.

Vienna had a profound influence on the young Neutra. It was the capital of the vast, polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire, which stretched across Central and Eastern Europe, home to Klimpt, Schiele, Moser, Musil, Broch, Schoenberg and Mahler and the father of psychoanalysis, Freud.

Biorealism

‘Biorealism was no mere aesthetic approach; it applied the biological and psychological sciences to foster solutions for the built environment. Influences from Neutra’s formative years led him to believe that biorealistic design was the only way the human race would survive. He spent his life and career devoted to this single cause’.

When WW1 broke out Richard Neutra served in the reserves of the Imperial Austrian Army as a lieutenant of artillery in the Balkans, briefly taking time off to go to Germany to complete his final architecture exams.

His first job after WW1 ended was in Zurich, Switzerland working with respected Modernist landscape architect, Gustav Ammann. His next move was to Germany in Spring 1921, at a time when the Weimar Republic was going through enormous change. From March to September Richard Neutra was employed in the municipal construction office in Luckenwalde, Germany working under the guidance of Josef Bischof, the city’s architect. They planned a striking multi-denominational cemetery in the middle of a forested area. This was a natural next step for Neutra as a way of experimenting with what he had learned with Ammann. Neutra did not stay to complete the project. In recently uncovered documents his vision for the funeral home and on-site housing for the employees showed the huge promise he would realise later.  Neutra’s f design differed from that which was later completed by his replacement.

Joining Erich Mendelsohn

A role in the Berlin office of  Erich Mendelsohn’s architecture practice was accepted. Amongst the projects, Neutra worked on was urban planning in Haifa, the Berliner Tageblatt Building and the 1923 Zehlendorf Housing Estate. Everything was going well but Richard Neutra was not satisfied, he wanted to experience life in the United States, possibly informed by Adolphe Loos who although not able to successfully establish himself in America, was entirely enamoured and seemingly passed on the bug.

Leaving Berlin with his wife and son, Neutra headed to New York and then in Chicago, in 1924 where a chance meeting led him to work in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin East Studio in Spring Green for three months.

Rudolf Shindler

Neutra knew he wanted to remain in the US. His old school pal Rudolf Shindler and his wife were living in West Hollywood and Neutra headed west in 1925 with his family. They moved in with the Schindlers in their Kings Road home. It became quickly clear that the families’ lifestyles were incompatible. Schindler’s home was at the epicentre of LA bohemian cool and the Neutras would have seemed rather old world and buttoned up in comparison.  Suddenly they were all crammed together in a very small space.

During this period Neutra and Schindler formed a partnership working on projects such as the competition to create a building for the League of Nations in Geneva. It was never built however the design was chosen for a travelling exhibition in Europe.  In 1927 they formed a new partnership adding in urban planner Carol Aronvichi, called the Architectural Group for Industry and Commerce (AGIC). The three men found little success. The partnership was short-lived and Neutra’s and Schindler’s friendship did not survive. Whether it was artistic differences or simply that Neutra was wholly focused on his career and family to the exclusion of much else, the relationship between the two families and the two designers faltered. First as friends, as architectural practice partners and,  then, post-split, in competition with each other, Neutra and Schindler, lived in the same space for five years from 1925-1930, five, by all accounts, very lively years.

Trying every avenue to earn a living, in 1928 Neutra tutored at the Acadamy of Modern Art in Los Angeles where he counted Gregory Ain as one of his pupils.

1929 was a turning point, when Richard and his family became American Citizens, looking back over their shoulders to a Europe that was leaning more and more towards extremist politics. Whilst they may not have realised it then, the decision is likely to have saved their lives.

CIAM

That year Neutra was invited to become the American Representative to CIAM’s meeting in Brussels, (he remained as the American rep until meetings ceased in 1941). Until WW2 CIAM was always considered a European project but after 1933 it changed in nature partially as a response to the rise in fascism with key members no longer living in their places of birth. Neutra was a clever choice for the role. He had a deep understanding of European architecture and he was familiar with key characters yet at the same time very connected to American architecture

Looking at Richard Neutra’s Lovell House, Los Feliz 1929

Lovell Health House images Michael Locke

Neutra would bring his first-hand knowledge of Modernism to America, commissioned to build the Lovell House he has been credited in this work with introducing International Style to the United States.

Neutra’s American career now began to take off but that it is not to say it was not peppered with real difficulty in the early years. He had decided that the West Coast was where he wanted to be, however, there were times in the early 1930s when he had a hard think about relocating to the East Coast. The economic impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s in America was deeply felt and home building all but came to a halt. Richard Neutra survived and arguably ultimately thrived in the lean years by working in the film industry at Universal for German emigre, Carl Laemmle. He was commissioned in 1932 to build a mixed-use office building for the studio on the intersection of Hollywood and Vine comprising a ground floor restaurant and shops with offices for the studio above.

Politically aware, Neutra did dabble with other ideas and it should be noted that he had expressed an interest in housing in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, though this did not lead to him accepting a commission.

In 1932 Neutra was included in Philip Johnson’s major show about Modernism at MoMA in New York,  Modern Architecture: International Exhibition

Neutra’s career from that point went from strength to strength, at each point along the way he was invited to join prestigious organisations whilst receiving a huge number of commissions to build family homes. Many simply think Richard Neutra’s work in Palm Springs but, frankly, he was so much more than that. In his designs, he was bringing together much that had impacted his early life plus a fascination with how people live in a house. The notion of a client answering a detailed questionnaire before Neutra began designing for them seems entirely obvious, now, but it was not when Richard Neutra presented this idea to clients.

In 1936 he employed Julius Shulman as a draftsman and to take photos of the Kun Residence. This launched an important architectural photography career for Shulman and a long collaboration followed with Neutra.

From 1942 to 1946 Richard Neutra sat on the advisory panel of the Architectural Review.  He was also one of a group of architects who built the Case Study Houses from 1945-64.