Neutra was born in Leopoldstadt, the second district ofVienna,Austria Hungary, on 8 April 1892, into a wealthyJewish family. His Jewish-Hungarian father Samuel Neutra (1844–1920),[4][5] was a proprietor of a metal foundry, and his mother, Elizabeth "Betty" Glaser[6] Neutra (1851–1905) was a member of theIKG Wien. Richard had two brothers, who also emigrated to the United States, and a sister,Josephine Theresia "Pepi" Weixlgärtner, an artist who married the Austrian art historianArpad Weixlgärtner and who later emigrated to Sweden. Her work can be seen at the Modern Art Museum in Stockholm.[7]
In June 1914, Neutra's studies were interrupted when he was ordered toTrebinje, where he served as a lieutenant in the artillery until the end of World War I. Dione Neutra recalled her husband Richard's hatred of the retribution against theSerbs in an interview conducted in 1978 after his death: "He talked about the people he met [i.e. in Trebinje] … how his commander was a sadist, who was able to play out his sadistic tendencies…. He was just a small town clerk in Vienna, but then he became his commander."[8]
Neutra took a leave in 1917 to return to the Technische Hochschule to take his final examinations.[9]
After World War I, Neutra moved to Switzerland, where he worked with the landscape architectGustav Ammann. In 1921, he served briefly as city architect in the German town ofLuckenwalde, and later in the same year he joined the office ofErich Mendelsohn in Berlin. Neutra contributed to the firm's competition entry for a new commercial center for Haifa, Palestine (1922), and to the Zehlendorf housing project in Berlin (1923).[10] He married Dione Niedermann, the daughter of an architect, in 1922. They had three sons, Frank L (1924–2008),Dion (1926–2019), who became an architect and his father's partner, and Raymond Richard Neutra (1939–), a physician and environmental epidemiologist.
Richard Neutra moved to the United States by 1923 and became anaturalized citizen in 1929. He worked briefly forFrank Lloyd Wright before accepting an invitation fromRudolf Schindler, a close friend from his university days, to work and live communally in Schindler'sKings Road House in California. Neutra's first works in California were both in the realm of landscape architecture: namely, the grounds of theLovell Beach House (1922–25), in Newport Beach, which Schindler had designed for Philip Lovell; and a pergola and wading pool for the complex that Wright and Schindler had designed forAline Barnsdall on Olive Hill (1925), in Hollywood. Schindler and Neutra would go on to collaborate on an entry for theLeague of Nations Competition (1926–27); in the same year, they formed a firm with the planner Carol Aronovici (1881–1957), called the Architectural Group for Industry and Commerce (AGIC). Neutra subsequently developed his own practice and went on to design numerous buildings embodying theInternational Style, 12 of which are designated as Historic Cultural Monuments (HCM), including theLovell Health House (HCM #123; 1929), for the same client as the Lovell Beach House, and the Richard and Dion Neutra VDL Research House (HCM #640; 1966).[10] In California, he became celebrated for rigorously geometric but airy structures that epitomized a West Coast version ofmid-century modern residential design. His clients includedEdgar J. Kaufmann, (who had commissioned Wright to designFallingwater, in Pennsylvania),Galka Scheyer, andWalter Conrad Arensberg. In the early 1930s, Neutra's Los Angeles practice trained several young architects who went on to independent success, includingGregory Ain,Harwell Hamilton Harris, andRaphael Soriano. In 1932, he tried to move to the Soviet Union, to help design workers' housing that could be easily constructed, as a means of helping with the housing shortage.[11]
In 1932, Neutra was included in the seminalMoMA exhibition on modern architecture, curated byPhilip Johnson andHenry-Russell Hitchcock. From 1943 to 1944, Neutra served as a visiting professor of design at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont. In 1949 Neutra formed a partnership with Robert E. Alexander that lasted until 1958, which finally gave him the opportunity to design larger commercial and institutional buildings. In 1955, theUnited States Department of State commissioned Neutra to design a new embassy in Karachi. Neutra's appointment was part of an ambitious program of architectural commissions to renowned architects, which included embassies byWalter Gropius in Athens,Edward Durrell Stone in New Delhi,Marcel Breuer in The Hague,Josep Lluis Sert in Baghdad, andEero Saarinen in London. In 1965, Neutra formed a partnership with his son Dion Neutra.[10] Between 1960 and 1970, Neutra created eight villas in Europe, four in Switzerland, three in Germany, and one in France. Prominent clients in this period includedGerd Bucerius, publisher ofDie Zeit, as well as figures from commerce and science. His work was also part of thearchitecture event in theart competition at the1932 Summer Olympics.[12]
Richard Joseph Neutra died on 16 April 1970, at the age of 78.[13]
He was known for the attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients, regardless of the size of the project, in contrast to other architects eager to impose their artistic vision on a client. Neutra sometimes used detailed questionnaires to discover his client's needs, much to their surprise. His domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape, and practical comfort.[citation needed]
In a 1947 article for theLos Angeles Times, "The Changing House," Neutra emphasizes the "ready-for-anything" plan – stressing an open, multifunctional plan for living spaces that are flexible, adaptable and easily modified for any type of life or event.[14]
Neutra had a sharp sense of irony. In his autobiography,Life and Shape, he included a playful 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.[citation needed]
The novelist/philosopherAyn Rand was the second owner of theVon Sternberg House in the San Fernando Valley (now destroyed). A photo of Neutra and Rand at the home was taken byJulius Shulman.[15]
Neutra's early watercolors and drawings, most of them of places he traveled (particularly his trips to the Balkans in WWI) and portrait sketches, showed influence from artists such asGustav Klimt,Egon Schiele etc. Neutra's sister Josefine, who could draw, is cited as developing Neutra's inclination towards drawing.[citation needed]
In 2009, the exhibition "Richard Neutra, Architect: Sketches and Drawings" at theLos Angeles Central Library featured a selection of Neutra's travel sketches, figure drawings and building renderings. An exhibition on the architect's work in Europe between 1960 and 1979 was mounted by the MARTa Herford, Germany.[citation needed]
Neutra's 14,000 sq ft (1,300 m2) "Windshield" house built on Fishers Island, New York, forJohn Nicholas Brown II burned down on New Year's Eve 1973 and was not rebuilt.[21]
Corona Avenue Elementary School, 1935, 3835 Bell Avenue,Bell, California
Largent House, 1935, 49 Hopkins Avenue at the corner of Burnett Avenue, San Francisco. Building was demolished by new owners and as of 2018[update], they have been ordered to rebuild an exact replica.[30][31]
1927:Wie Baut Amerika? (How America Builds) (Julius Hoffman)
1930:Amerika: Die Stilbildung des neuen Bauens in den Vereinigten Staaten (Anton Schroll Verlag). New Ways of Building in the World [series], vol. 2. Edited byEl Lissitzky.
1935:"New Elementary Schools for America".Architectural Forum.65 (1):25–36. January 1935.
1948:Architecture of Social Concern in Regions of Mild Climate (Gerth Todtman)
1951:Mystery and Realities of the Site (Morgan & Morgan)
1954:Survival Through Design (Oxford University Press)
1956:Life and Human Habitat (Alexander Koch Verlag).
1961:Welt und Wohnung (Alexander Kock Verlag)
1962:Life and Shape: an Autobiography (Appleton-Century-Crofts), reprinted 2009 (Atara Press)
1962:Auftrag für morgen (Claassen Verlag)
1962:World and Dwelling (Universe Books)
1970:Naturnahes Bauen (Alexander Koch Verlag)
1971:Building With Nature (Universe Books)
1974:Wasser Steine Licht (Parey Verlag)
1977:Bauen und die Sinneswelt (Verlag der Kunst)
1989:Nature Near: The Late Essays of Richard Neutra (Capra Press)
^Esther McCoy.(1974).Letters between R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra, 1914-1924.Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 33, No. 3 (October 1974), pp.219–224
^abNeutra, Dion (2012). "The Neutras Then & Later(Photography by Julius Shulman".I (I). Triton: Barcelona, Los Angeles.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
^Holleran, Scott. "Richard Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright & Ayn Rand: An Interview with Architect Dion Neutra".Capitalism Magazine. June 2, 2017.
^"Cal Poly Pomona Given Neutra Research House".Los Angeles Times. 2 March 1980.
^"Architect's Home Given To Cal Poly".Los Angeles Times. 18 May 1980.
McCoy, Esther (1960).Five California Architects. Reinhold Publishing.ISBN0-275-71720-8.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
reprinted in 1975 by Praeger
Hines, Thomas (1982).Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture. Oxford University Press.ISBN0-19-503028-1.
reprinted in 1994 by the University of California Press
reprinted in 2006 by Rizzoli Publications
Lavin, Sylvia (December 1999). "Open the Box: Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the Domestic Environment".Assemblage.40 (40). The MIT Press:6–25.doi:10.2307/3171369.JSTOR3171369.
Lamprecht, Barbara (2000).Richard Neutra: Complete Works. Taschen. p. 360.ISBN978-3822866221.
Lamprecht, Barbara (2004).Richard Neutra, 1892–1970: Survival through Design. Taschen.ISBN3-8228-2773-8.
Lavin, Sylvia (2005).Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture. MIT Press.ISBN0-262-12268-5.
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