The Los Angeles Heritage Fee unanimously voted on Thursday for the Dion Neutra / Reunion Home, designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra, to be added to town’s listing of historic and cultural monuments.
The hillside residence at 2440 N. Neutra Place in Silver Lake was constructed as a speculative residence in 1951. It was known as the “Reunion Home” as a result of, in accordance with the nomination type for the cultural monument, it was introduced as a home for grandparents and household reunions. Neutra typically created narratives for hypothetical purchasers whereas engaged on initiatives.
The Neutra household purchased the home in 1963 and Richard’s son Dion lived in it from 1966 till his loss of life in 2019.
Dion, who was additionally an architect and skilled with Richard, helped put a number of refinements into the home and added an house over the storage.
“Independently of one another, Richard and Dion have made minor modifications to the home for many years, a novel circumstance within the Neutra canon,” stated Barbara Lamprecht, writer of three books on Richard Neutra, throughout a presentation to the fee on Thursday.
The two,155 sq. meter home is hidden behind dense planting on the slope.
The home is “a wonderful instance of a single-family residence within the architectural fashion of Mid-Century Trendy and a extremely intact work by the architects Richard and Dion Neutra,” says the nomination type.
“The property represents the additional improvement of Richard Neutra’s progressive design ideas for small however versatile residential buildings. Regardless of its modest measurement, the property retains many components of Richard Neutra’s evolving vocabulary, together with using contrasting glass and stucco surfaces, projected beams that span the constructing envelope, and deep overhangs with bands of sunshine across the edges. ”
The nominators additionally stated the property stays very intact and has maintained its integrity by way of location, design, environment, supplies, end and really feel.
Richard Neutra is taken into account one of the vital vital architects of the trendy age. He was born in Vienna in 1892 and lived and labored in Germany. After arriving in the USA in 1923, he labored briefly for Frank Lloyd Wright. He died in Germany in 1970.
Dion Neutra was born in Los Angeles in 1926 and started coaching along with his father on the age of 11. He studied on the USC Faculty of Structure, the place he graduated in 1950. He practiced structure along with his father after which independently. He died in Los Angeles in November 2019 on the age of 93.
The home was nominated by Raymond Neutra, brother of Dion Neutra and President of the Neutra Institute for Survival By way of Design.
“I’d identical to to emphasise that the Neutra Institute wish to use this historic monument not solely as an inventive object, but in addition as a chance to start out additional discussions on subjects that are actually vital and relate to house buildings. Intergenerational housing and (further housing items), in addition to the lodging of individuals as they age and the flexibility to take care of individuals after they get sick, ”stated Raymond Neutra on Thursday earlier than the fee.
“My brother Dion ended his life on this constructing and his spouse is at the moment in hospice care, and this design, made 70 years in the past, is splendidly appropriate with that.”
The subsequent advice to declare the property a cultural and historic monument goes to the Los Angeles Metropolis Council.
