Archinect - News

Flea's Michael Maltzan-designed hillside LA compound drops price from $10M to $7M

2024-04-23T12:41:00-04:00

[...] property in the unincorporated community near Glendale has once again resurfaced for sale, per TMZ, this time asking a speck under $7 million. That’s still a lot more than the $4.3 million Balzary paid contemporary artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell for the place in 2018, but it does include an 875-square-foot addition that was installed on the land in 2021, as well as a pool and cabin that were tacked on in 2020.

As we wrote in 2022, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist listed the property asking $9.8 million, having purchased the property four years previous for $4.3 million. The Michael Maltzan-designed complex contains an outdoor movie pavilion, a redwood cabin, and a smaller two-bedroom house designed by Richard Neutra.

Engel Studios, Cameron Carothers; Associated Press

Artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell originally commissioned Maltzan for the single-bedroom addition in 2009, and it has since been featured in several design magazines, in addition to receiving an AIA Award in 2012.

Explore images of Shubin Donaldson’s completed restoration of Richard Neutra’s Mariners Medical Arts building in Orange County

2024-01-05T09:00:00-05:00

An overlooked design from one of Southern California’s most respected midcentury designers, Richard Neutra’s Mariners Medical Arts building in Newport Beach, California, was restored thanks to Los Angeles-based ShubinDonaldson.

The project for client Burnham-Ward Properties sought to bring the three-pavilion design as close to its original appearance as possible. Key elements include the re-installation of water features that had been removed in the early 1970s.

Image © Benny Chan/fotoworks 2023

ADA accessibility upgrades, new drought-resilient landscaping, LED lighting, and other environmental improvements were equally vital in achieving the developer’s aim to once again establish Neutra’s design as an architectural superlative of the Orange County enclave.

All images: © Benny Chan/fotoworks 2023

“Having admired Mariners Medical Arts for decades, it has been an honor for me to be part of the team trusted to restore the building as originally designed by Neutra,” Shubin Donaldson Pr...

Frances Anderton says LA must end the stigma of apartment dwelling to survive

2023-01-12T17:38:00-05:00

Anderton’s book provides further powerful evidence that density is not something to be scared of, but is fertile ground for architectural invention, creating more neighbourly, walkable communities, and ultimately making Los Angeles a more livable city for all.

The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright joined Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles author Frances Anderton for a walking tour of select historic apartment buildings that included Richard Neutra’s 1937 Strathmore Apartments in Westwood (noteworthy as the first apartment Charles and Ray Eames rented after they moved to the city in 1941) and the Irving Gill’s 1910 Horatio West Court, whose new neighbor is a just-finished transitional housing project from Brooks + Scarpa.

“There’s still an ingrained cultural stigma here, that renting an apartment means you haven’t quite made it," Anderton reminds us. The city's broken political culture, meanwhile, isn't making the issue much easier.

The former host of KCRW's popular radio show, DnA, has been a frequent collaborator on Archinect. Anderton joined us in December 2020 on the Archinect Sessions podcast to talk about her career and "the backstory behind her transition from architecture student to journalist to radio personality."

Lis...

Richard Neutra-designed Oregon home hits the market at $3,750,000

2022-05-23T14:26:00-04:00

A Portland house with a provenance like no other is for sale. The revolutionary dwelling was designed 82 years ago by modernist architect Richard Neutra for lily hybridizer Jan de Graaff and his wife, Peggy, heir to the Macy’s department store owner who died on the Titanic.

The home, originally constructed in 1941, is located at 1901 South Comus Street. It was listed on Thursday, May 19th through Oregon-based real estate company The Hasson Company with an asking price of $3,750,000.

The three-level residence is celebrated for its embodiment of Neutra’s International style with its floor-to-ceiling windows and custom wood built-ins. It is one of only two Oregon homes designed by Neutra, who was commissioned by the de Graaffs to design a house for their modern furniture and art collection.

The house spans 6,887 square feet and sits on a 0.85-acre lot, offering unobstructed mountain, city, and river views. It features five bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms.

Flea lists his Michael Maltzan-designed hillside LA compound (added bonus: Neutra-designed guest house)

2022-02-14T18:00:00-05:00

Michael “Flea” Balzary no longer has any need for his funky architectural digs tucked away in the La Crescenta foothills. The Red Hot Chili Pepper bassist has now officially listed the pedigreed property in the unincorporated community near Glendale, asking a hefty $9.8 million for the one-of-a-kind refuge he picked up for $4.3 million almost four years ago.

Flea purchased the Michael Maltzan-designed complex, which includes an outdoor movie pavilion, redwood cabin, and smaller two-bedroom house Richard Neutra designed for his secretary Dorothy Serulnic, from artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell in June of 2018.

Engel Studios, Cameron Carothers; Associated Press

The pair originally commissioned Maltzan for the single bedroom addition in 2009, and it has since been featured in several design magazines in addition to receiving an AIA Award in 2012. Its sale should clear up some overhead for the 59-year-old bassist, who recently spent $14 million on a home overlooking the Hollywood Hills – a long way away from the youthful underworld of squats and drugs dens he described in his 2019 memoir Acid for the Children.

Iwan and Manuela Wirth are reportedly buying Richard Neutra's iconic Lovell Health House in Los Angeles

2021-09-21T12:24:00-04:00

The Lovell Health House, as the behemoth on Dundee Drive came to be known, remains a dumbfounding sight. It occupies a steep slope at the edge of Griffith Park, plunging three stories from street level. [...] It is a monumental yet unreal creation—a silver-white vessel that seems to have docked at the top of a canyon.

Neutra's 1929 home has and was featured in the classic 1997 film LA Confidential. Wirth's eponymous gallery first established a presence in Downtown Los Angeles in 2016 and is set to expand to a second site soon with some help from Selldorf Architects, who has designed seven of the gallery’s sixteen spaces worldwide thus far.

The 4616 Dundee Drive property in Los Feliz has been on the market for over a year at a listing price north of $9.75 million. Its current owner inherited the architectural gem from his parents, who purchased it for $60,000 in 1960. The New Yorker has more on the unmistakable beauty behind Neutra’s biorealist masterpiece here.

Neutra Reunion House added to Los Angeles' list of Historic-Cultural Monuments

2021-06-11T18:43:00-04:00

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday added the Reunion House, by prominent modernist architect, Richard Neutra, to the city’s list of Historic-Cultural Monuments.

The hillside residence was built in 1950 and sits at 2440 Neutra Place in Silver Lake. It was built as a speculative house, designed to accommodate grandparents and visiting family members, hence the name Reunion.

The Neutra family bought the home in 1963, and in 1966, it was transferred to Richard’s son Dion who lived there until his death in 2019. Dion, also an accomplished architect, trained under his father starting at the age of 11. He studied at the USC School of Architecture, where he graduated in 1950. Neutra went on to work in his father’s firm, where the pair worked together through the 1950s. He became a partner of the practice in 1965 and led the company following his father’s death in 1970. Over decades, minor alterations were made on the house by both Richard and Dion. Most notably, Dion added an apart...

California Polytechnic University, Pomona's Dept of Architecture awards Toyo Ito the 2021 Richard J. Neutra Award for Professional Excellence

2021-04-14T15:52:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Cal State Polytechnic University, Pomona, an Archinect School Partner

The Department of Architecture, California Polytechnic University, Pomona is pleased to award Toyo Ito the 2021 Richard J. Neutra Award for Professional Excellence. The Neutra Award recognizes the contributions that Richard Neutra, an acclaimed modern architect, and former Cal Poly Pomona lecturer, made to the practice of architecture in the areas of research and design. The Neutra Award acknowledges individuals who have dedicated their careers to researching and developing new environments in which to work, live and play.

Mr. Ito (1941-), graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1965 and worked in the office of Kiyonori Kikutake until 1969. In 1971, he founded his own office Urban Robot (URBOT), which was renamed Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects.

Mr. Ito is the recipient of numerous awards for his innovative and forward-looking architecture. He is the recipient of the Golden Lion ...

Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House still for sale

2020-12-29T13:50:00-05:00

If you're shopping for a modernist architectural landmark to kick off the new year, you might be in luck: the Richard Neutra-designed Lovell Health House in the Los Feliz hills of Los Angeles is still available after hitting the market back in February.

Featured in several Hollywood movies, the expansive 4,807-square-foot home was completed in 1929 and quickly became an icon of the International Style.

Previously on Archinect: Neutra's Lovell Health House is heading for sale. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user MichaelJLocke.

"Without question, this house together with Schindler’s Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach are the greatest monuments of the International Style in Southern California," wrote historians David Gebhard and Robert Winter. "The Lovell House…firmly established Neutra’s world reputation."

In late January, Archinect reported on the current owner's intention to list the property.

The current asking price for the expansive five-bedroom, four-bathroom property is...

Neutra's Lovell Health House is heading for sale

2020-01-28T15:50:00-05:00

Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House in the hills above Los Angeles is reportedly going up for sale.

According to a recent report in The Real Deal, the current owner of the 4,807-square-foot cliffside, International Style home is currently working to build buzz around the house in advance of a potential sale.

The owner, Ken Topper, grew up in the home, which was owned previously by his parents Betty and Morton Topper. Morton, who purchased the house back in 1960 for $60,000, passed away in 1971, while Betty continued to live in the home until last August when she herself passed away.

An as-built drawing of the home created for the Historic American Building Survey. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Now, the aging home is in need of a slate of repairs, including structural upgrades, though it is largely intact. The Mortons purchased the home from the original owners, Morris and Leah Lovell. The home features off-the-shelf factory windows that wrap around the exterior walls...

Safe from demolition, Richard Neutra's Chuey House seeks "preservation-minded buyer"

2019-01-04T17:36:00-05:00

The Los Angeles Conservancy, which spearheaded the landmarking efforts, canceled plans to name the property a Historic-Cultural Monument after agreeing to a deal with owners Paul and Gigi Shepherd to “take demolition off the table.” That means buyers must be willing to relocate the home if they plan to build on the stunning hillside vista where it sits.

Now listed for $6.25 million, Richard Neutra's historic Chuey House in Hollywood Hills is still up for grabs. “According to listing material, the one and a half acres upon which [the house] sits could accommodate a 20,000 square foot megamansion. That’s more than 10 times the size of the existing structure,” the article states.

Christopher Hawthorne's Frank Lloyd Wright documentary “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles” to air next week

2018-03-01T19:19:00-05:00

Why focus on Wright, American architecture’s equivalent of Abraham Lincoln, the giant who casts a shadow over his field big enough to blot out smaller and underrepresented figures? [...] Because the architect’s brilliant if forbidding Southern California houses, the most important of which were designed in a burst of creative energy during the first few months of 1923, remain mysterious, their meaning and inspiration as opaque as their heavy, richly patterned concrete-block facades.

Christopher Hawthorne's documentary, “That Far Corner: Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles”, focuses on aspects of the infamous architect's work which remain enigmatic. Filming inside eight Wright buildings, the project interviews around 20 people to present new insights around these mysterious works.

Hawthorne explains, "My overarching goal was to bring some new, sustained attention to a group of houses that have lingered too long, given their importance to the American architectural canon, in the relative shadows." The title “That Far Corner" originates from a phrase Wright used to describe Southern California in his autobiography.

As part of a new ARTBOUND season, the documentary airs next Tuesday March 6, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on KCET-TV. The episode will also stream online at KCET, as well as on Amazon, YouTube, Roku, and Apple TV following its broadcast. Tune in and decide what you make of Hawthorne's theory. As a bonus, several of the interviews occur inside residential designs by ...

Richard Neutra's Chuey House in danger of being torn down in bankruptcy sale

2017-09-05T14:13:00-04:00

Richard Neutra’s glass and steel Chuey House in the Hollywood Hills is being marketed as a ‘tear down’ for $10.5m. The architect designed the midcentury modern home for poet Josephine Ain Chuey in 1956, and it has since passed down to her niece and nephew, who filed for bankruptcy in June. It’s now being sold as a ‘truly unique development opportunity’, with no mention of its architectural merit – just its ‘spectacular’ Sunset Plaza Drive location and ‘unmatched panoramic views..."

Iconic, elegant, and now endangered: one of the works of the masters of mid-century modern architecture has been listed more for its lot than for the exquisitely cantilevered structure itself. After its completion, Josephine Ain, who was living with her husband Richard Chuey, wrote to Neutra that “You are an alchemist who has transmuted earth, house, and sky into a single enchantment. I can only hope that I can in some measure grow up to the wholeness and balance embodied here.”

Image: Julius Shulman

The Neutra VDL House Celebrates its National Historic Landmark Status

2017-04-26T13:13:00-04:00

Built in 1932, the VDL Research House designed by Richard Neutra is one of Southern California’s modernist gems. Now it has been named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior following the tireless work of its owners, the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation and, in particular, the VDL House director and chair of the architecture department at Cal Poly, Sarah Lorenzen. The effort was assisted by Los Angeles Congressman Adam Schiff, who helped celebrate the designation last Sunday.

Neutra’s third building in the United States, and his own private home, the House is said to encapsulate his ideas. For the famed Austrian-American architect, the role of contemporary architecture was to shape life in the modern world, marked by new technologies and new lifestyles. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the House is “the only property where one can see the progression of his style over a period of years and is among the key properties to understanding the nation...

Check out the newly-restored Neutra-designed Oasis Building in the Petrified National Forest

2017-04-14T12:21:00-04:00

Back in the early ‘60s, the National Park Service had a program dubbed Mission 66, dedicated to bringing modern facilities to the national parks. One of the earliest examples of this, the Painted Desert Community Complex designed by Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander, has just been restored in a joint effort between the Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A 22-acre self-contained park community, the Complex is the last surviving Neutral-Designed structure in the Park Service system. It’s design was inspired by Puebloan Native American buildings as well as the dramatic landscape of its site, the Petrified Forest National Park. Comprising 36 steel, glass and masonry buildings with flat roofs, low silhouettes, primary colors and native plantings.

The buildings have been in a state of depredation for some time, ravaged by neglect, a lack of maintenance funding and the harsh desert climate. The restoration mainly focused on the glass Oasis Building storefront, m...

Become the proud tenant of a Neutra-designed office space in Los Angeles

2016-08-09T12:49:00-04:00

If you’re looking for some exceptional LA office space, you’re in luck. The Neutra Institute Museum in Silver Lake, Los Angeles—formerly known as the Neutra Office Building—is leasing 160 square feet in the front of the building for $1,200 a month to a “sympathetic Neutra fan/tenant”. The rest of the 1200 square feet space is intended to house a museum or gallery that would “become a cultural center for Silverlake”, among other programs.

Currently, an attorney rents the space. Before being converted into an institute, Richard and Dion Neutra Architects and Associates occupied the site. The office space that’s available for lease must be “voice activity tolerant” as it’s adjacent to a conference room.

The newly-created Neutra Institute Museum will create an “community room”-cum-gallery for artists to display work; host exhibitions curated by local museums such as LACMA; display parts of the Neutra archive; and serve as a retail space. It will also develop support programming for the VD...

Meditating on the "Past Future Housing" of Los Angeles with Morgan Fisher and Karina Nimmerfall at the MAK Center

2016-05-10T13:56:00-04:00

“How can you morally and ethically justify in your own mind working on a project that would take people accustomed to living on the ground, of having their gardens, chickens, and their little animals in their yards, having space around them, having flowers, to live in these twenty-four thirteen-story-high buildings?” The architecture critic asks the architect – modeled after Richard Neutra – in a play by the artist Karina Nimmerfall, part of her installation with Morgan Fisher at the Garage Top at the MAK Center in Los Angeles.

Entitled Past Future Housing, the exhibit comprises a painting by Fisher paired with a bare-if-not-quite-minimalist installation by Nimmerfall that includes a video and the play, printed out and stapled. An accompanying exhibit text clarifies the intention of the work as a meditation on historical, optimistic visions for public housing in the city, with some look towards the “future” implied if not readily evident.

More specifically, the show revolves around tw...

Updating a college campus, at the expense of Richard Neutra's legacy

2015-12-10T14:24:00-05:00

College officials say 1950s-era buildings that are peppered across the Costa Mesa campus — many of them designed by renowned architect Richard Neutra — are no longer able to accommodate the school's rising population. [...] "We appreciate the Neutra buildings for what they were and what they meant to the campus, but times do change," trustee Mary Hornbuckle said. "We have to be responsive to the needs of the 21st century student."

Get Lectured: Cal Poly Pomona, 2015 Neutra Award lecture

2015-10-23T16:53:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Fall 2015

Archinect's Get Lectured is ready for another school year. Get Lectured is an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back frequently to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

Our next featured poster is a special event from Cal Poly Pomona's Fall '15 architecture lecture series. Next Monday, Enrique Norten of TEN arquitectos will deliver the Neutra Award lecture in honor of receiving the 2015 Neutra Award for Professional Excellence.

Rutgers Business School by TEN arquitectos.

Established in 1980, the award is presented to distinguished architects, landscape architects, and individuals outside of the field who have made lasting contributions to environmental design and public policy.

The lecture takes place at the ...

Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler meet for one last time in new play, "The Princes of Kings Road"

2015-09-15T17:28:00-04:00

Midcentury modernist architects Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler may have been good friends when they studied together in Vienna, but by the time they ran into one another one last time in a Los Angeles hospital in 1953, they were bitter enemies. Ensemble Studio Theatre/L.A.'s production of The Princes of Kings Road, now playing at the Neutra Institute in Silver Lake, imagines what it might have been like in the hospital room they shared

‘The Princes of Kings Road’: Neutra and Schindler the subject of a new site-specific play

2015-06-10T18:47:00-04:00

Next September, the historic Neutra Institute and Museum in Silverlake will host a new play by Tom Lazarus entitled ‘The Princes of Kings Road.’ Based on a true events, the production imagines a reunion between the two iconic figures of LA modernism, Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra.

The architects have a storied history, which was recounted in a Vanity Fair article from 1999. After building his West Hollywood home (now the MAK Center), Schindler and his partner invited Neutra and his wife to live with them. The house was originally intended as a communal living space for two couples, with open-air "sleeping baskets" rather than bedrooms. But after five years of cohabitation and professional partnership – the two architects collaborated on an entry for the the League of Nations palace in Geneva – their relationship turned sour, transforming into a bitter rivalry.

Lazarus' play imagines Schindler and Neutra reunited in a room at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital (now the bright blue Scien...

Rev. Robert H. Schuller, patron of architecture, 1926-2015

2015-04-03T00:25:00-04:00

"Come as you are in the family car"

"ARTESIA, Calif. (AP) — The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, a California televangelist and author who beamed his upbeat messages on faith and redemption to millions of followers from his landmarkCrystal Cathedral only to see his empire crumble in his waning years, has died. He was 88."

The Rev. Schuller known as the pastor who invented religious marketing and branding was also a patron of architecture. He started his congregation as a rented space from Orange Drive-inTtheatre. Later, Schuller hired modernist architect Richard Neutra who completed The Tower of Hope in 1968 and in 1980 Crystal Cathedral was dedicated as it was designed by Philip Johnson, a Pritzker Prize winning (its first in 1979) American architect. The latest addition was a Visitor Center designed by a New York architect Richar Meier in 2003 who also won a Pritzker Prize in 1984.

Petrified Forest buildings named national treasure

2014-10-14T11:55:00-04:00

Spanning dozens of acres, the structures provided everything the park staff and visitors would need: a gas station, restaurant, community building, maintenance shop, housing, even a two-room elementary school. The National Park Service entrusted the design to prominent architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander ahead of the agency’s 50th birthday, and it’s the only project of theirs still standing within the Park Service.

You Can Build a Brand New Richard Neutra Case Study House

2013-04-25T14:45:00-04:00

the Neutra Office (and Neutra's son Dion, a partner) has teamed up with the California Architecture Conservancy to offer the architect's plans for license. According to a press release, "For the price of what one would customarily pay for an architect to design and render supervising architectural services, you can build one of the mid-century modernist master's works of art and have Dion Neutra and the Neutra Office supervise the construction."

Press release from The Agency...

Richard Neutra’s Architectural Plans Available For First Time; Now Possible To Build Your Own “Neutra”

No longer are the architectural plans of mid-century master Richard Neutra merely curatorial elements of an architectural exhibition. Now, courtesy of a new partnership between Dion Neutra (Richard’s long-time partner in the Neutra Office), California Architecture Conservancy (CAC) and the Neutra Office, those plans can serve as the basis for your new home.

Neutra (1892-1970), who is perhaps the most important of the mid-century modernist architects, if not of the Twentieth Century as a whole, became famous for the simple geometries of his designs, which were often made of steel and glass, and the prefabricated elements that made them extremely easy to build with a modernist look. Several of his built designs were demolished or remodeled to the extent that they can no longer be considered true “Neutras.” And many more were drawn up, but neve...

Editor's Picks #298

2013-01-15T11:43:00-05:00

The 14-year battle over the fate of the modern structure at the heart of Gettysburg National Military Park is over, as the National Park Service will begin demolishing the Richard Neutra designed Cyclorama building as soon as February. A disappointed Donna Sink argued "How can destroying what is truly a unique piece of art while allowing KFC to be visible from the battleground furthering our appreciation of the tragedy of this battle?"

News
Amy Worden explained that the 14-year battle over the fate of the modern structure at the heart of Gettysburg National Military Park is over, as the National Park Service will begin demolishing the Richard Neutra designed Cyclorama building as soon as February.

A disappointed Donna Sink argued "I've said this elsewhere but I want to say it here too: Detractors claim that this building is insensitive because it was built on the actual battlefield where soldiers died. I can't disagree completely with that sentiment...How can destroying what is truly a unique piece of art while allowing KFC to be visible from the battleground furthering our appreciation of the tragedy of this battle?".

Bustler.net reported the young Slovak firm, Nice Architects, has won the first prize in the architectural/urban design competition "Parkhill" aiming to transform the area of a former open air amphitheater in Bratislava, Slovakia. Nice Architects' winning entry is a collaboration ...

Cyclorama building at Gettysburg will be demolished

2013-01-11T13:58:00-05:00

The National Park Service said Thursday that it would begin demolishing the Cyclorama building as soon as February, clearing the site ahead of the 150th anniversary commemoration of the battle. The site will be restored to its 1863 appearance, complete with a period apple orchard and replicas of the wood fences that once crisscrossed the fields, park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon said. The massive painting that the building once housed has been separately preserved.

Architect Dion Neutra To Take His Famous Father's Work To Raleigh, NC

2012-10-30T19:19:00-04:00

Triangle Modernist Houses continues the 2012 TalkModern Lecture Series.

October 30, 2012 (Raleigh, NC) – In 1949, Time magazine named modern master Richard Neutra (1892-1970) the second most important architect in America, second only to Frank Lloyd Wright. On Tuesday, November 13, at 7 p.m., the master’s son, architect Dion Neutra, AIA, will discuss his father’s celebrated work and philosophy when he presents “Neutra Architecture: The View From Inside” at the AIA North Carolina Center for Architecture and Design in downtown Raleigh.

Dion’s lecture is the second half of Triangle Modernist Houses’ 2012 TalkModern Lecture Series this fall entitled “A Fistful of Neutras.” His brother Raymond spoke in October.

A partner in his father’s firm, Dion will share his personal and professional views of the sensitivity to the relationship of man and nature that he and his father called bio-realism.

“The Neutras sounded the environmental alarm in the 1950s many years before ecology, ...

Fight over Gettysburg’s Cyclorama building may be near end

2012-09-04T19:43:00-04:00

The National Park Service, which first announced plans to demolish the Cyclorama in 1999, has complied with a judge's order to complete a comprehensive review of the building and possible alternative, and has again arrived at the same conclusion: Tear it down.

Save the only Neutra In Pakistan

2012-04-12T15:05:00-04:00

"In 1955, the US State Department commissioned Richard 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 by Walter Gropius in Athens, Edward Durrell Stone in New Delhi, Marcel Breuer in The Hague, Josep Lluis Sert in Baghdad and Eero Saarinen in London."  

Neutra referred to these other buildings as “just pretty buildings” and called his design as “stripped for action”. A slightly curved stately white rectangular slab punctuated with narrow rectangular windows suitable for Karachi’s hot climate. A building which has seen a lot of activity, from International and State affairs to movie screenings, art openings and car bomb attacks in 2002 and 2006 which led to its eventual shut down to the public. It seems obvious that such a space be repurposed with the same energy it once had for local and international culture. Its demolition would not only mean the loss...

Newport Beach halts remodel of Richard Neutra building

2012-02-13T16:28:51-05:00

Preservationist John Linnert, a Costa Mesa architect, noticed crews working on the upstairs interior in January and reported them to the city planning staff. He has kept a close watch on the building in recent years.