The Neutra Office Building is a office building in the Silver Lake section of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. The building was owned and designed by

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

architect

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; 8 April 1892 – 16 April 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for most of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. His most ...

in 1950. It served as the studio and office for Neutra's architecture practice from 1950 until Neutra's death in 1970. The building has been declared a Historic Cultural Monument and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. It was listed for sale in 2007 at an asking price of $3,500,000.

Richard Neutra

Architect Richard Neutra (1892-1970), a native of

Vienna, Austria Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, moved to Los Angeles in 1925 to work with Rudolph Schindler on

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

's Barnsdall Park project. In 1929, Neutra became famous in his own right with the completion of his landmark Modernist

Lovell House The Lovell House or Lovell Health House is an International style architecture, International style Modern architecture, modernist residence designed and built by Richard Neutra between 1927 and 1929. The home, located at 4616 Dundee Drive in ...

in the

Los Feliz LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significanc ...

section of Los Angeles. Over the next 20 years, Neutra became one of the recognized innovators and leaders of

architecture.

Construction and architecture of the Neutra Office Building

Neutra built the Silver Lake office building in 1950 to house his own architectural practice. Neutra designed the building with his son, Dion Neutra, acting as project architect and Red Marsh as the contractor. The one-story office building includes two reception areas, two conference rooms, and a large open office space. The building also includes two residential units with an enclosed garden at the rear of the building. The building has been carefully preserved by Neutra's son, Dion. Many original built-ins and design details remain intact, including custom strip lighting, acoustic tiles, exposed ducting, operable louvers, and blue Aklo glass.

Operation as Neutra's design studio

The building has been called "a piece of L.A. history since many of (Neutra's) L.A. buildings were probably dreamed up in this very office." It was in this building that Neutra designed many of his landmark buildings, including the U.S. Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan, th
Los Angeles Hall of Records
the

Gettysburg Cyclorama Building Gettysburg may refer to: Events * Gettysburg Campaign, a series of American Civil War military engagements in the Main Eastern Theater. ** Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3 military engagements during the 1863 Gettysburg Campaign ** Retreat from ...

, th
Orange County Courthouse
and the

Huntington Beach Public Library The Huntington Beach Public Library (HBPL) is a library system located in Huntington Beach, California. It offers online databases, print and electronic books and magazines, children's programs, computer lab, DVDs, CDs, and audiobooks for anyon ...

. The building remained the site of the Neutra architectural practice even after Neutra's death in 1970; Dion Neutra continued the practice at the site until the 1990s.

Historic designation

Known mostly for his residential designs, the Neutra Office Building in Silver Lake is Neutra's only surviving commercial structure with Neutra's original design. The Neutra web site describes the building as "the only surviving example of Neutra commercial design that is still intact." Marketing materials for the building call it "a pristine example of the work of one of the seminal architects of the Modernist movement" and "the ''only'' remaining example of Neutra commercial design, still with its original look." The building was designated a Historic Cultural Monument (HCM #676) by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 2000 and listed in the

in 2004.

Listing of the building for sale in 2006

After 56 years of being owned by the Neutra family, the building was listed for sale in November 2006 at an asking price of $3,500,000. The sale was conditioned on the buyer accepting a protective conservation easement, which Dion Neutra considered essential to prevent his father's work from disappearing. He told the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...

: "I'm hoping to find a suitable steward while I'm alive that would take care of the building into the foreseeable future." The marketing brochure compared the building to works of art by

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...

and

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...

and went so far as to say: "The purchase of this icon would be equivalent to acquiring the last remaining

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 1452 - 2 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested o ...

masterpiece." One critic wrote of Dion's "delusional price comparison of his father's office building to the paintings of Klimt & Pollack." As of July 2008, after 20 months on the market, the Neutra web site continued to list the building for sale.

References

{{LAHMC Richard Neutra buildings Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Office buildings completed in 1950 Office buildings in Los Angeles Headquarters in the United States Modernist architecture in California Silver Lake, Los Angeles 1950 establishments in California