Table Of Content
As photography became more available, magazines, publications, and printed media became the primary way people would consume architecture. This allowed home inhabitants to walk from the interior to the exterior without sensing a temperature change on the floor. They would feel as though they were on the same surface even after crossing the glass line and over to the exterior hardscape slab. Department store owner Edgar Kaufmann – who had previously commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design what is now known as Falling Water – decided to hire Richard Neutra in 1946 to create a vacation home in Palm Springs. Although Kaufmann was still a fan of Wright, he was looking for a space with a lighter vibe, and Neutra certainly delivered.
Eight mid-century houses that prove Palm Springs is a modernist mecca
Palm Springs Architecture Is What Keeps the Rich and Famous Coming Back Architectural Digest - Architectural Digest
Palm Springs Architecture Is What Keeps the Rich and Famous Coming Back Architectural Digest.
Posted: Wed, 30 Mar 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The layout includes five bedrooms and five bathrooms, with a grassy backyard and pool overlooking the San Jacinto Mountains to the west. The house’s swimming pool is one of the most iconic and recognizable aspects of the Kaufmann House; however, it is not solely a photographic gem or simply a recreational feature. The house alone is unbalanced and heavy as the wings are not equally proportioned, but with the addition and placement of the swimming pool there is a cohesive balance and harmony throughout the design. Best known for his eponymous Pittsburgh department store, Kaufmann revered good design.
Timeline
Wanting to capture more views at a higher elevation, Neutra designed the gloriette as an open-air perch on top of the house, covered by a roof and shading devices on two sides. Integrating outdoor living spaces and balconies was a consistent theme in Neutra’s past work. The gloriette is accessed from an outdoor flight of stairs that touches down in the central courtyard. The four wings of the structure are accessed through covered breezeways and these contain the kitchen, master bedroom and four other bedrooms. Neutra was known for his designs that blurred the lines between indoors and outdoors and many features of the Kaufmann House reflect this sensibility.
Future of furniture design
Even designed with right angles, the forms of the house are very smooth; yet the severe winds of northeast Palm Springs still blow everything they can get a hold of, despite improvements to the walls and blinds. The large sliding windows, whose bronze-colored blinds alleviated the silvery glow of the house, lead to an open, adjacent courtyard in the living room and in the master bedroom, open to the pool. Although one wing of the house sits on an east-west axis, the other sits perpendicular or to the cardinal directions to expand the areas of residence. Without the original plans for the house, the Harrises dug through the Neutra archives at the University of California, Los Angeles, looking at hundreds of Neutra’s sketches of details for the house. They persuaded Mr. Shulman to let them examine dozens of never-printed photographs of the home’s interior, and found other documents in the architectural collections at Columbia University.
snøhetta's mixed-use building in oslo performs with net-zero energy usage
In the west wing there is a kitchen, service spaces and rooms for staff which can be reached by a deck “breezway”. The desert, or rather, this primordial wilderness area that stretches around Palm Springs, fascinated Neutra. His 1927 book “Wie Baute Amerika” ends with images of houses of the Indian peoples of New Mexico and Arizona, praising their overlapping rooms, with terraces on the roof and the ability of mud brick to withstand inclement weather.
How “Don’t Worry Darling” Became the First Movie to Film at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House - Dwell
How “Don’t Worry Darling” Became the First Movie to Film at Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House.
Posted: Thu, 22 Sep 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
To the west is a kitchen and service rooms, accessed by a covered breezeway, with a master bedroom to the east. Built in 1946, the boxy two-storey residence has many defining elements of modern architecture – a flat roof, pale exterior and shaded outdoor spaces – tailored to the arid climate of the California desert. The Kaufmann House is celebrated for its distinctive design, which masterfully integrates the building with its desert surroundings while maintaining a functional elegance.
The Harrises went with Christies who put a pre-auction estimate for the house at $15-25 Million. The Kaufmann desert house received a final bid of $15 million, but the sale was not completed due to a breach of terms by the buyer. The south wing comprises two covered walkways separated by a massive stone wall, while another open path leads north past a patio to a pair of guest bedrooms. Large sliding glass doors open onto patios that are lined with vertical, moveable metal fins. These slats enable the rooms to be shaded and cooled during extreme heatwaves, and closed up during sandstorms. The Kaufmann House was built by Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra for Edgar J Kaufmann – an American department store entrepreneur – as a vacation residence away from his Pittsburgh home.
Neutra created another outdoor seating area by placing a lookout pavilion above the living area of the otherwise one-story building. The pavilion’s western and northern sides are lined with the same aluminum louvers as used below, while the other two sides are left open. Neutra named this elevated room a “gloriette,” a northern European Baroque term that denotes an elevated pavilion offering views of a garden or a landscape. The house was originally captured in the black-and white images of american architectural photographer julius shulman. In 1970, slim aarons chose it as the setting for his iconic photograph ‘poolside gossip’, depicting california society women by the pool. Regarded among the most important houses of the 20th century, the kaufmann house is currently up for sale via gerard bisignano of vista sotheby’s international realty for $25m.
The same retail baron commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, a decade earlier. The Harrises purchased the home for US$1.5 million, then sought to restore the home to its original design. Neutra died in 1970 and the original plans were not available, so the couple brought in Los Angeles architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner to restore the design. They were able to obtain pieces from the original suppliers of paint and fixtures; and they purchased a metal-crimping machine to reproduce the sheet-metal fascia that lined the roof.
The house is structured as a series of horizontal planes that seem to float against the rugged backdrop of the San Jacinto Mountains. The floor plan is expansive and open, typical of Neutra’s work, promoting a seamless flow between the interior and exterior spaces. Nestled in the foothills of Palm Desert, California, the Annenberg Estate is a stunning example of mid-century modern architecture. Quincy Jones for media mogul Walter Annenberg, the original estate is comprised of 25,000 square foot house on 200 acres. The plan leaves spaces for the courtyards on the periphery of the plan, creating a system of privacy appropriate to the specific occupant in the space; hosts, children, guests, servants, etc.
Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Neutra were the first to introduce the style in the United States starting in the 1920’s. However, it wasn’t until after World War II that it saw its rise in popularity, with the escalation of more industrial materials being used in construction. The style was based on the use of new production technologies that generally included steel, concrete, and glass. It also used cleaner, more fluid lines that harmonized with its surrounding environment. This fluid architectural style is what Richard Neutra used to create the Kaufmann House.
If walking the rich through Palm Springs’ most exclusive house is a privilege, it is also wistful. The Harrises, who reportedly share the house on alternating weekends, may not be happy about parting with the house they have done so much to preserve. • Neutra did dig the foundations and managed to leave just before they were ordered to halt construction as a result of shortages of materials during the war.
Albert Frey, patron of Le Corbusier, had built his house here in 1940 and in 1937 completed the tiny House of Millar Neutra. Julius Shulman's photographs played an important role in establishing the Kaufmann residence as one of the nation's most iconic modernist houses. Upon completion of the Kaufmann house, Neutra gave Shulman explicit instructions about how he wished the building to be photographed, suggesting dusk and evening shots that looked back into the illuminated interior.
Since their restoration of the house (completed in 1995) there have been close to 275 articles about the Harris' efforts and those of their architects, Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner. SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs was designed and built in 1946–1947, although some sources claim that the preparatory contact between client and architect occurred in 1945. The house exemplifies Neutra’s approach to designing a house and its surroundings as a single, continuous environment, a concept he had begun to work with in the early 1940s. Other examples are Neutra’s Nesbitt House (1942, Los Angeles) and the Tremaine House (1945–1948, Montecito).
No comments:
Post a Comment