Richard Neutra: A Comparative Study of Lovell & Kaufmann Houses

This essay provides an overview of Richard Neutra's architectural contributions through a detailed analysis of the Lovell Health House and Kaufmann Desert House. It explores Neutra's background, influences, and design principles, highlighting his innovative use of materials like steel and Gunite in residential architecture. The essay discusses the historical context of the Lovell House, its impact on modern architecture, and Neutra's client-focused approach. It also examines the Kaufmann Desert House, contrasting it with Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and emphasizing Neutra's ability to blend art, landscape, and practical comfort. The analysis covers Neutra's career trajectory, including his partnerships and commissions, and concludes with the lasting significance of his designs. Desklib provides students access to similar solved assignments and study resources.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 1
ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA
LOVELL HEALTH HOUSE AND KAUFMANN DESERT HOUSE
Name of Student
Subject Name
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ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 2
Introduction
This section gives a brief biography of Richard Neutra, a renowned architect in the early 1900s.
He was born in 2nd Vienna City in the year 1892 at Leopoldstadt. He originates from a wealthy
Jewish extraction. He came from a Jewish father who had a Hungarian relation .the father was
known as Samuel Neutra, and he lived between the years of 1844 and 1920. His mother was
known as Elizabeth, and the father dwelt in metarlagy1At the age of going to school, he was
victorious through primary and secondary and later joined Vienna University of Technology
during the years of between 1910 to 1918. As a young scholar, he lived during the time of Adolf
Loos. In one of the famous works of Loos, ‘ornamentation is a crime' he based his beliefs in this
phrase doing a solid groundwork in philosophy at the time of migration into the 20th Century in
History. This period was now referred to as modernism. He then moved to Berlin where he
worked for Mendelsohn and then settled in the United States. In the States, He encountered
Frank Lioyd Wright based in Chicago thereafter he moved to Los Angels and worked with
Rudolph Schindler. The way of life motivated him to start his firm where he got his first
commission. The Lovell House which later introduced him into the modern architectural world.
In this world of architecture, Neutra was commissioned by Dr. Philip Lovell, to design his
home2This was after Lovell had commissioned another designer Schindler to design his beach
house. In this regard, the design he gave had a clear description of the construction works
managing the costs and of high-quality work too. He had selected the steel frame as the structure
1 Baek, J., 2016. Architecture as the Ethics of Climate. Routledge.
2 Boote, David RD. "The geological history of Istria ‘Depression', Romanian Black Sea shelf: tectonic controls on
second-/third-order sequence architecture." Geological Society, London, Special Publications 464, no. 1 (2018):
169-209.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 3
for the building this made it one of the first homes in the United States of America to employ
steel on a residential project3The exterior design mainly cladded via the application of Gunite
material and it also incorporated spray in concrete, laying down the basis of its uses. These
transformations in technological advances made it easy for the house to take on lightness in the
United States of America.
The Lovell House has been described to be a style of an international modernist. The house
residentially designed, and this structure is attributed to Richard Neutra as the lead architect. The
House was built between the period in years of 1927 and 1929 in the 19th century. Its location is
to the Dundee Drive found in the capital of Los Angels, California which is in the present day
United States of America4. The later is described to have been constructed for the purposeful
Philip Lovell both a physician and a naturopath. Some architects have considered the design as a
principal monument of the time in the history of architecture. This became one of the major
turning points of the architect Richard Neutra’s career. Before the building of this house, there
had never existed a steel frame of the same in the present day the United States and Neutra’s
steel made frame house went into the history of being named the first house built of the steel
frame in the United States of America. The home also applied the use of the components of
Gunite which is applied to concrete using spray. During his visit to Chicago before moving to
Los Angels had inspired him since it is here that the knowledge of erecting a steel frame house
was familiarly basing the works at Holabird and Roche firm that he earlier visited for work.
3 Berlanda, Tomà. Architectural topographies: a graphic lexicon of how buildings touch the ground. Routledge,
2014.
4 Young, Victoria M. Saint John's Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the creation of a modern sacred space.
University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 4
Being a contractor in Holabird and Roche firm, his sole reason becomes known to a few in the
sense that he wanted to be able to not only the cost but also the quality.
Richard Neutra’s house aesthetically comes after some principles which mark the quality of
international style. The exhibition presented in the 1920s by the artists particularly at the Modern
Art Museum based in New York City had the inclusion of the house which had a retrospective
description of the style. In practical sense, it gave a reflection for Richard Neutra on the interest
for the production of industrial products. This also combined the knowledge of window
assemblies of factory origin which had now turned to be repetitive. In a statement, Richard's
trainee Harwell Hamilton Harris suggested that the reason he was drawn to the United States was
for the engineer known as Henry Ford. Ford is known for his tremendous inventory in the field
of mechanics.
The inside shows a reflection of Richard’s interest in three factors which are Cubism,
transparency, together with hygiene. Irving Gill's attention is also manifested in the minimal
details. Making advancement to the Lovell House that Richard had been popularly known for; he
further made an installation of a two model known as Ford Model which was mainly a headlight
in the primary stairwell. This was (the headlights) provided by Richard’s trainee Gregory Ain.
The famous and Historic American Buildings Survey also described that the House of Lovell is
an excellent example of an architecture of residential in which the environment is created by the
technology5. This was a key historical moment in the field of architecture which gave inspiration
to quite a number of people interested in the field6
5 Williams, Richard J. "Architecture’s Modernisms." A Companion to Modern Art (2018): 263-281.
6 Ceballos, Francisco C., Peter K. Joshi, David W. Clark, Michèle Ramsay, and James F. Wilson. "Runs of
homozygosity: windows into population history and trait architecture." Nature Reviews Genetics 19, no. 4 (2018):
220.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 5
Consequently, it is said that the house charmed and impressed Philip Lovell and this followed the
public appraisals for his new architect. This went so fast on the air like a moving wind and
impressed Neutra was now in the public domain. All this followed the building of the favorite
Lovell Beach House which was erected to him by Schindler whom he had commissioned to build
it7. Upon arrival of Neutra a contemporary of Schindler, it was Schindler who housed him when
the two had settled in the city of Los Angels. This was back in the year 1925. Instead, Dr. Lovell
decided to choose architect Neutra leaving Schindler to build for him a house in his home in Los
Angels, a time that both Neutra and Schindler were living together under one roof. Lovell came
to this selection after he had realized that Neutra had a stable relationship with his clients
something which gave Neutra so much trust to work. From the description heightened, Neutra
had a feeling of himself to be a therapist while the client to be his patient and therefore with the
imagination of the doctor-patient relationship, Neutra was able to create a free working
atmosphere for both for himself and the clients8. This attention made him very famous during
that time since it was rare to find. He concentrated so much in defining the clients’ real needs,
this was regardless of the size of the project he was to handle, sometimes, Richard had to prepare
questionnaires just to determine and know his client’s needs and vision something which was not
the same with other architects who based their interest on their ego. To their dismay, Neutra’s
domestic architecture became a mixture of art, landscape, and also practical comfort. This is
what drove Dr. Lovell to like his prowess. One of the things he did was to spend the time to get
7 Ching, Francis DK. Architecture: Form, space, and order. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
8 Sperber, Esther. "Sublimation: Building or dwelling? Loewald, Freud, and architecture." Psychoanalytic
Psychology 31, no. 4 (2014): 507.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 6
to know his clients well enough and analyzed their needs9. In 1932, Neutra was lucky to be
included in an exhibition made on architects of modern designs. In the later years specifically in
1949, Richard formed a partnership with his friend Robert E. Alexander which worked up to
1958; this partnership finally granted Neutra the opportunity of designing an institutional
building of larger commercial purpose. In the year1955, the Department of State in the United
States of America commissioned him to make a design of a new embassy based in Karachi10This
appointment of Neutra's became part of a program of ambition commissions in architectural
designs to renowned and established architects. These were the embassies by Walter
Gropius based in Athens, that of Edward Durrell Stone based New Delhi, Marcel Breuer found
in The Hague Netherlands, another one is Josep Lluis Sert found in Baghdad, and lastly the Eero
Saarinen found in London. In 1965 Richard Neutra again formed another partnership with his
son Dion Neutra. Between the years of1960 and 1970, Richard Neutra managed to create the
eight villas located in Europe, four found in Switzerland, three located in Germany, and one
having a base in France. It is said that some of the prominent clients during this period included
among others, Gerd Bucerius, which was apublisher of Die Zeit, as again some figures from both
science and commerce. By 1971, The Lovell House by Richard Neutra had been added as one of
the Historical places which are registered in Los Angels of the United States11. The figure below
the Lovell House structure which was designed by Richard Neutra.
9 Collard, Pete. "The modern art of filmmaking: Architecture on-screen at MoMA." Film, Fashion &
Consumption 7, no. 1 (2018): 7-17.
10 Denison, Edward. Architecture and the Landscape of Modernity in China before 1949. Routledge, 2017.
11 Eisen, Susan E., Cliff Kucharski, Hung Q. Le, Dung Q. Nguyen, and David R. Terry. "Processing instructions in
parallel with waw hazards and via a distributed history buffer in a microprocessor having a multi-execution slice
architecture." U.S. Patent Application 10/073,699, filed September 11, 2018.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 7
Figure 1.1 Architects, Richard Neutra, Lovell House, (1927)
Kaufmann Desert House
The planning of the house began a decade after Edgar Kaufmann decided to hire the prolific
Frank Lloyd Wright to assist him in the designing of the Fallingwater House12. This house was
located in the Bear Run, however, Edgar Kaufmann; wanted to construct another house in the
makeable West Coast. First and foremost, Edgar Kaufmann decided to travel to the great land of
Taliesin West located in the Arizona middle13. Conversely, Edgar Kaufmann having appraised
12 Gürel, M.Ö., 2018. Seashore readings: the road from sea baths to summerhouses in mid-twentieth century Izmir.
In Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey (pp. 45-73). Routledge.
13 Jackson, Neil. The modern steel house. Taylor & Francis, 2016.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 8
and looked at the designed works, was never impressed with the design works for the house and
therefore, left with the intention of visiting Richard Neutra. The individual went to Richard
Neutra with the purpose of getting both qualities as well as the brilliant project. Although Edgar
Kaufmann expected quality work, he also knew that the work would be lighter grounded on the
definition of the Palm Springs which he had in mind and had been associated with various forms
of immoralities as well as frivolity14.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the city mainly situated in the landscape of the Mount San
Jacinto foot and tend to offer parametric refuge for the different Hollywood since the year, the
1920s. Furthermore, the area has been dominated with the various lunar landscape structures
which are defined as the Neutra. Some of the houses in the area incorporates the House of Millar
Neutra and that patron of Le Corbusier essentially built been the year 1937 and 1940
respectively. Furthermore, the Desert Kaufmann House regarded as the dominant house in the
area and covers an overall space of 300 square meters as well as estimated at the cost of
$348,000. This structure often regarded as one of the greatest achievements attained so far in the
area. In essence, the structure also offered the landing ground for the silver airplane. The plane
tends to land on the makeable green carpet in the area15. Furthermore, the plane often held in the
position via the application of the meticulously stones. The house mainly located in Palm
Springs in the California city at the demarcated 470 West Vista Chino. The aims of designing
this house were marked it as the desert landscape in line with the prevalent harsh climatic
14 Lang, Jon, and Walter Moleski. Functionalism revisited: architectural theory and practice and the behavioral
sciences. Routledge, 2016
15 Lubell, Sam, and Douglas Woods. Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis. Rizzoli
Publications, 2016.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 9
conditions which the area had in due course. The existence of the desert in the area demarcated
the primordial wilderness as far as the city is concerned, and this tends to stretches even to the
overall Palm Springs16. The norm thus makes the place to appear as the fascinated Neutra in the
long run. The analysis conducted and noted in the writings of the Richard Neutra indicated the
various images of the Indian houses for both the individuals living in Arizona as well as those
living in New Mexico. In essence, the book tends to appreciate and praises the erection of the
overlapping rooms with dignified roofing terraces as well as mid-brick with the pertinent
resistant abilities to the inclement weather. The house not only depicted for their neat precision
in line with the Desert House but also emphasizes on the homes sprites of the different Indian
tribes and thus, had a lot of impacts in the region as a whole. The house was built with Richard
Neutra in such a manner that it had the horizontal planes. These parallel planes mainly depicted
to tend to float in line with the applied transparent glass walls used in the construction process.
The use of the transparent glass walls made the house to have a makeable appeal and appearance
of lightness in line with the overall look. The designer also took into consideration the norm
regarding the plot slope. The accommodation of the aspect mainly emphasized via the
application of the fused landscape. The idea mainly used in ensuring that the overall volume used
in the process did rise above the set land level17Thus,
16 Lasner, Matthew Gordon. "Architect as developer and the postwar US apartment, 1945–1960." In Buildings &
Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 27-55. University of Minnesota,
2014.
17 Muller, Brook. "The Machine Is a Watershed for Living In (Reconstituting Architectural Horizons)." the
pluralist 11, no. 1 (2016): 78-92.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 10
. most of the rooms in the house are on the sing floor with exception taken for the small terraces
which one tend to access from a different end. Also, the design had a swimming pool located on
the lower end, and this tends to reflect the appealing nature of the house in the long run.
The Kaufmann House has makeable distilled space incorporated and integrated with the silver-
plated horizontal planes. The horizontal planes often rest on the overall transparent glass planes
as far as the design works and the overall construction is concerned18. Furthermore, there is the
unique sharp with parametric vertical features, and this is detached as the chimney. This chimney
mainly located at the public square in line with the analysis of the Neutra. In the design work,
Richard Neutra utilized his skills in coming up with a second height, and the aim of this was to
ensure that he eliminated the entire existing roundabout in the walls. The elimination mainly
carried across the structure with the exceptions given for vertical aluminum sheets and along the
chimney19. The house also had aesthetic considerations, clear plan as well as shielding and
functional design which incorporated the wind load resistance. The house also had two
fundamental wings. One sat on the makeable east-west axis while the other on the cardinal and
perpendicular directions. The aim of having a design for the two sides was to ensure that there is
an expanded residence area in the structure. The structure also had large sliding windows painted
in the bronze-colored. This was to ensure that there is alleviated depicted in line with the house
18 Neutra, Raymond Richard. "On the Past and Future Tensions Between Documentation and Esthetics in
Architectural Photography." In Arts, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 335-349. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2014.
19 Sperber, Esther. "Sublimation: Building or dwelling? Loewald, Freud, and architecture." Psychoanalytic
Psychology 31, no. 4 (2014): 507.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 11
silvery glow. Some of the places which the norm bronze-colored was applied included the
adjacent courtyard, master bedroom and the pool openings20. Notably, the structure designed in a
manner that it had the overall east wing mainly connected to the parametric north wing living
space via the utilization of the gallery. This houses the overall bedroom suite. On the other hand,
there is the existence of the corridor opening at the north wing section which connects the rooms
along the outside patio section. Furthermore, there is the lounge area and this shares space with
the dining room and regarded as the house center.
Moreover, the plan in line with the cross guarantees incorporated the makeable four wings
having both the excellent ventilation and the daylight. Subsequently, there was a makeable south
wing which tended to connect the public sphere21. These often incorporated the long walkways
and the marquee. Preferably, there is the existence of the enormous stone walls separations along
the sidewalks which aim at giving access to the various services sections as well as the other
house in the area. Furthermore, the kitchen mainly situated in the west wing alongside the staff
rooms and the service spaces and the access to the area primarily necessitated with the utilization
of the deck breezeway22. The garden mainly designed with permeates all over the house, and this
hastens the horizontal oscillations across the structure. Figure showing the illustration of the
structure.
20 Ostwald, Michael J., and Michael J. Dawes. "Richard Neutra: Spatial Theory and Practice." In The Mathematics
of the Modernist Villa, pp. 179-205. Birkhäuser, Cham, 2018.
21 Parra-Martínez, José, and John Crosse. "Editorial Policies and Politics of Design in the Pre-case Study House
Program Decade: The Visual Construction of California Arts & Architecture (193X–194X)." In Congreso
Internacional de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, pp. 657-671. Springer, Cham, 2018.
22 Roth, Leland M. Understanding architecture: Its elements, history, and meaning. Routledge, 2018.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 12
Figure 1.2, Architect, Richard Neutra, Kaufmann House, (1920)
Comparison between the Lovell House and
Although the Kaufmann House mainly designed with the right angle, the various house forms
tend to be smooth in the long run23. However, the actions of the northeast Palm Springs tend to
be severe on the structure and thereby blows all the available materials they find in the way. In
essence, the improvements performed have not fully protected the house from the various actions
of the northeast Palm Springs winds in line with both the blinds as well as the walls24.
23 Schmiedeknecht, Torsten, and Andrew Peckham, eds. Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal:
Reporting, Editing and Reconstructing in Post-War Europe. Routledge, 2018.
24 Roth, Leland M., and Amanda C. Roth Clark. American Architecture: A History. Hachette UK, 2016.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 13
Furthermore, the decision for designing the courtyards and the bedrooms spirally reflects on the
specific social order. In essence, the norm ensures that there is the extreme privacy for all the
members living under the roof. The members consider in the process include, both the makeable
hosts, guest children as well as the servants. Furthermore, there is the coexistence demarcated at
the terraces, walkways as well as courtyards. Furthermore, the blinds which flank along the
makeable dark pool assists in connecting the gusset wings with the other demarcated house
rooms25.
Conclusion
In summary, this paper appraised the works of Richard Neutra as far as the architectural design
works are concerned. The first section of the work deals with the Kaufmann House, and the
evaluation encompasses the structural design of the house as far as aesthetics, and the beauty is
concerned. On the other hand, the study also Lovell House in New York City and the analysis
takes into consideration all the architectural specifications and reviews. From the review, it is
clear that the works of Richard Neutra demarcated immense impacts on the architectural
design26. These achievements cannot be underestimated at any point in due course.
References
Baek, J., 2016. Architecture as the Ethics of Climate. Routledge.
25 Roth, Leland M., and Amanda C. Roth Clark. American Architecture: A History. Hachette UK, 2016.
26 Schrank, Sarah. "Naked Houses: The Architecture of Nudism and the Rethinking of the American Suburbs."
In Healing Spaces, Modern Architecture, and the Body, pp. 23-47. Routledge, 2016.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 14
Berlanda, Tomà. Architectural topographies: a graphic lexicon of how buildings touch the ground. Routledge, 2014.
Boote, David RD. "The geological history of Istria ‘Depression', Romanian Black Sea shelf: tectonic controls on
second-/third-order sequence architecture." Geological Society, London, Special Publications 464, no. 1 (2018):
169-209.
Ceballos, Francisco C., Peter K. Joshi, David W. Clark, Michèle Ramsay, and James F. Wilson. "Runs of
homozygosity: windows into population history and trait architecture." Nature Reviews Genetics 19, no. 4 (2018):
220.
Ching, Francis DK. Architecture: Form, space, and order. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Collard, Pete. "The modern art of filmmaking: Architecture on-screen at MoMA." Film, Fashion & Consumption 7,
no. 1 (2018): 7-17.
Denison, Edward. Architecture and the Landscape of Modernity in China before 1949. Routledge, 2017.
Eisen, Susan E., Cliff Kucharski, Hung Q. Le, Dung Q. Nguyen, and David R. Terry. "Processing instructions in
parallel with waw hazards and via a distributed history buffer in a microprocessor having a multi-execution slice
architecture." U.S. Patent Application 10/073,699, filed September 11, 2018.
Gürel, M.Ö., 2018. Seashore readings: the road from sea baths to summerhouses in mid-twentieth century Izmir.
In Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey (pp. 45-73). Routledge.
Jackson, Neil. The modern steel house. Taylor & Francis, 2016.
Lang, Jon, and Walter Moleski. Functionalism revisited: architectural theory and practice and the behavioral
sciences. Routledge, 2016.
Lasner, Matthew Gordon. "Architect as developer and the postwar US apartment, 1945–1960." In Buildings &
Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 27-55. University of Minnesota,
2014.
Lubell, Sam, and Douglas Woods. Julius Shulman Los Angeles: The Birth of a Modern Metropolis. Rizzoli
Publications, 2016.
Muller, Brook. "The Machine Is a Watershed for Living In (Reconstituting Architectural Horizons)." the
pluralist 11, no. 1 (2016): 78-92.
Neutra, Raymond Richard. "On the Past and Future Tensions Between Documentation and Esthetics in Architectural
Photography." In Arts, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 335-349. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2014.
Ostwald, Michael J., and Michael J. Dawes. "Richard Neutra: Spatial Theory and Practice." In The Mathematics of
the Modernist Villa, pp. 179-205. Birkhäuser, Cham, 2018.
Parra-Martínez, José, and John Crosse. "Editorial Policies and Politics of Design in the Pre-case Study House
Program Decade: The Visual Construction of California Arts & Architecture (193X–194X)." In Congreso
Internacional de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica, pp. 657-671. Springer, Cham, 2018.
Roth, Leland M. Understanding architecture: Its elements, history, and meaning. Routledge, 2018.

ARCHITECTURE HISTORY: ARCHITECT - RICHARD NEUTRA 15
Roth, Leland M., and Amanda C. Roth Clark. American Architecture: A History. Hachette UK, 2016.
Schmiedeknecht, Torsten, and Andrew Peckham, eds. Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal:
Reporting, Editing and Reconstructing in Post-War Europe. Routledge, 2018.
Schrank, Sarah. "Naked Houses: The Architecture of Nudism and the Rethinking of the American Suburbs."
In Healing Spaces, Modern Architecture, and the Body, pp. 23-47. Routledge, 2016.
Sperber, Esther. "Sublimation: Building or dwelling? Loewald, Freud, and architecture." Psychoanalytic
Psychology 31, no. 4 (2014): 507.
Williams, Richard J. "Architecture’s Modernisms." A Companion to Modern Art (2018): 263-281.
Young, Victoria M. Saint John's Abbey Church: Marcel Breuer and the creation of a modern sacred space.
University of Minnesota Press, 2014.