Archinect - News

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...

Architect and preservationist Dion Neutra has passed away

2019-11-26T18:20:00-05:00

Dion Neutra, the son of the 20th century architect Richard Neutra and a practitioner in his own right who also waged a decades-long war to save his father’s iconic buildings from the ravages of time, remodeling and demolition, has died at his home on Neutra Place in Silver Lake, a neighborhood studded with Neutra architecture. Neutra, who was 93, died Sunday in his sleep, said his brother, Raymond Neutra.

The Los Angeles Times highlights the life and career of Dion Neutra, the son and collaborator of Richard Neutra, the famed Los Angeles architect behind many of the city's sleek Modernist-era structures. Dion worked alongside his father on some of the firm's most creative works, including the VDL II Research House.

View of the downstairs interiors of the VDL II Research House. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user DavidHartwell.

In his later years, as his father's works increasingly fell to the wrecking ball, Dion became an ardent preservationist. In 2004, he told The Los Angeles Times, "There should be a national will to save these buildings,” adding, “It shouldn’t have to be a one-man crusade.”

The approach is one he lived through and through. "My wife gives me hell because I’ve kept the original 1950s Case toilet that doesn’t flush right,” Dion explained to The Los Angeles Times, "'Listen,' I tell her. 'This is the toilet that Richard Neutra sat on — I’m not getting rid of it.'"

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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...

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, ...