Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) Austrian American Architect & Designer

Brazilian Modern 'Boomerang' Lounge Chair by Richard Neutra, Limited Edition
Brazilian Modern ‘Boomerang’ Lounge Chair by Richard Neutra, Limited Edition

Prominent and modernist architect

Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) was an Austrian American artist and designer. He was born in Vienna and lived in Los Angeles and southern California for much of his life.

Education

He studied at the Technische Hochschule, Vienna, until 1917.

Biography

While working for the Municipal Building Office in Luckenwalde (Germany), Neutra met Erich Mendelsohn and went to work for him in Berlin. He moved to the United States in 1923 and worked at numerous architecture firms.

In 1924, he met Louis Sullivan in Chicago; in 1924, Frank Lloyd Wright; and, in 1924, he worked alternately at Holabird and Roche in Chicago and for Wright in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Neutra functioned as a translator for Erich Mendelsohn when he visited Wright in Wisconsin in 1924.

Between 1925 and 1930, Neutra lived and worked in Los Angeles at the home of Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler.

Neutra worked alone in Los Angeles from 1930 to 1939 and then with his son Dion from 1949 to 1958.

Beginning in 1949, Neutra started working with Robert Alexander on several significant contracts. Neutra mostly created residences in the International Style, with basic, albeit eccentric, site-specific furniture, including chromium-plated tubular furniture, grouped in broad open spaces. Wagner and Loos had an effect on his clean, beautiful structures. With broad fenestration, they blurred the line between indoor and external spaces. He often imitated Wright’s use of built-in furniture modules to create open interior spaces.

Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra
Lovell Health House by Richard Neutra

Commissions

  • Neutra is best known for the Lovell House in 1929 and the Nesbitt House in 1942, both in Los Angeles. 
  • His other buildings were the League of Nations’ 1927 competition entry (with Rudolph Schindler); 
  • 1932 VDL Research House in Los Angeles; 
  • 1935 Josef von Sternberg house in Northridge, California; 
  • 1937 Strathmore Apartments in Los Angeles; 
  • 1927 Landfair Apartments in Los Angeles; 
  • 1938 Schiff house in Los Angeles; 
  • 1942—44 Channel Heights Housing in San Pedro, California; 
  • 1947 Kauffmann house in Los Angeles; 
  • 1942—44 Channel Heights Housing in San Pedro, California; 
  • 1942—44 Channel Heights Housing in San Pedro His site-specific furniture included the 1929 Cantilever Chair in tubular steel for the Lovell house, 
  • a low-backed bentwood model for the 1942 Branch house, and a high-backed bentwood model for the 1947 Tremaine house; 
  • the 1940 Camel Table with wooden legs for the Sidney Kahn house, and 
  • the 1951 revised version with metal legs for the Sidney Kahn house, and the 1950 Camel Table with wooden legs for the Sidney Kahn house.

He was a foreign member of UAM and a prolific writer (Union des Artistes Modernes).

Name available in our partner stores

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing.

More Austrian Designers

  • Wiener Werkstätte Austrian Art and Crafts Studio

    Wiener Werkstätte Austrian Art and Crafts Studio

    Wiener Werkstatte was based on the ideals of the guild system & developed a direct relationship between designers and craftspeople. READ MORE >Read More →

  • Valerie Wieselthier (1896 – 1945) Austrian-American ceramic artist

    Valerie Wieselthier (1896 – 1945) Austrian-American ceramic artist

    She was the head of the Wiener Werkstätte’s ceramic workshop. She worked in a highly distinctive style with coarse modelling and drip-glass effects. Read More →

  • Dagobert Peche (1887 – 1923) Austrian artist and designer

    Dagobert Peche (1887 – 1923) Austrian artist and designer

    He devised wholly new, amusing forms, frequently in simple materials like tole and cardboard; the conditions caused by World War I dictated the use of low-cost raw materials. Read More →

  • Otto Wagner: An Architectural Colouring Book

    Otto Wagner: An Architectural Colouring Book

    By the time the Viennese architect Otto Wagner (1841-1918) began publishing the drawings included in this colouring book, he had already spent much of his career designing historicist-style buildings. But his attitude was changing, and he completely ignored those early designs in time.Read More →

  • Rudolf Hammel (1862 -1937), Austrian Architect and Designer

    Rudolf Hammel (1862 -1937), Austrian Architect and Designer

    Rudolf Hammel, an Austrian architect, designer, and teacher, was a professor at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. He designed silverware for Josef Bannert and A. Pollak, showcasing his contemporary aesthetic. Hammel’s contributions to Vienna’s design scene are evident.Read More →

  • Jean Perzel (1892 – 1986) Austrian Lighting Designer

    Jean Perzel (1892 – 1986) Austrian Lighting Designer

    He began painting on glass at a young age and worked as a stained glass artist in Munich. He worked in many workshops in Paris starting in 1919, including Jacques Gruber’s. He saw that electric illumination was nothing more than a transformation of oil lamps and candlesticks. He made his first lamps in the style…

  • Frederick Kiesler Austrian, American Designer

    Frederick Kiesler Austrian, American Designer

    Frederick John Kiesler, an Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theatre designer, artist, and sculptor, was born Friedrich Jacob Kiesler in Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary Empire (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), in 1890. 1965 saw his passing.Read More →

  • Hans Harald Rath (1894 – 1966), Austrian Glassware Designer

    Hans Harald Rath (1894 – 1966), Austrian Glassware Designer

    Hans Harald Rath was an Austrian glassware designer who played a crucial role in reviving the glass industry in Austria. He designed chandeliers for public buildings, theatres, opera houses, and table crystal services. His sons took over the firm after his death in 1968.Read More →

  • Julius Jirasek (1896 – 1966), Austrian Architect and Designer

    Julius Jirasek (1896 – 1966), Austrian Architect and Designer

    Julius Jirasek (1896–1966) was an architect and designer.  He was active in  Vienna. He designed flats, business premises, and furniture.Read More →

  • Lucie Rie (1902 – 1995) the Genius British Ceramicist

    Lucie Rie (1902 – 1995) the Genius British Ceramicist

    Lucie Rie (1902 – 1995) was an Austrian-born British ceramicist. Between 1922-26, she studied fine art, at Kunstgewerbeschule, Vienna, under Michael Powolny. Read More →

  • Friedl Dicker – Austrian Jewish Designer: A Creative Journey

    Friedl Dicker –  Austrian Jewish Designer: A Creative Journey

    Friedl Dicker (1899 – 1944) was an Austrian architect and furniture, interior, and textile designer. She was active with Franz Singer in their Werkstätten bildender Kunst, Berlin, and amalgamated her studio with Singer’s, Vienna, designing houses, apartments, kindergartens, offices, textiles, interiors, and furniture. She was arrested during the Starhemberg Putsch in Vienna, practised interior architecture…

  • Otto Wagner (1841 – 1918), Austrian architect and designer

    Otto Wagner (1841 – 1918), Austrian architect and designer

    Architect Otto Wagner was one of the leading figures in the Vienna Secession. After studying architecture at the Vienna Technical High School (1857–1860) and the Vienna Academy (1861–183), he worked in various historical styles for many years until he joined the Secession.Read More →

  • Herbert Bayer (1900 – 1985) – Universal Typeface – Bauhaus Master

    Herbert Bayer (1900 – 1985) – Universal Typeface – Bauhaus Master

    The universal typeface, 1925, was a geometric alphabet based on bar and circle and was designed by Herbert Bayer. READ MORERead More →

  • Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) Father of Anti-Design

    Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) Father of Anti-Design

    Although trained and active as an architect, Sottsass secured a permanent place in pop culture with his designs of everyday items. From 1957, he was a consultant designer at Olivetti, where he designed computers, adding machines, typewriters, and systems furniture. Read More →

  • Hattie Carnegie (1886 – 1956) American Clothing Designer, Jeweller

    Hattie Carnegie (1886 – 1956) American Clothing Designer, Jeweller

    Her family settled in the USA when she was in her teens and took the Carnegie name. In 1909, with a friend, she opened a tiny dress and hat shop, New York, known as Carnegie—Ladies’ Hatter.Read More →

  • Frederick Kiesler (1890 – 1965) Austrian architect designer

    Frederick Kiesler (1890 – 1965) Austrian architect designer

    From 1920, he collaborated briefly with Adolf Loos. in the 1920s. He designed theatre sets and interiors; in 1923, he joined the group De Sujl and, in the same year, developed the design of his ‘Endless’ house and theatre. Read More →

  • Caricaturist Illustrates – What’s Wrong With Today’s Society

    Caricaturist Illustrates – What’s Wrong With Today’s Society

    Haderer had even gone to court over one of his works, “The Life of Jesus,” which sparked heated reactions across the country, particularly among Catholics. He was able to change the verdict a few months later, after being sentenced to a six-month ban.Read More →

  • Franz Schuster (1892 – 1976) Austrian Furniture Manufacturer

    Franz Schuster (1892 – 1976) Austrian Furniture Manufacturer

    He was active in Vienna from the 1910s. As part of a municipal program to construct workers’ homes after World War I, he designed a small row in the Viennese suburb Laaer Berg. At this time, he also produced his modular stacking furniture.Read More →

  • Erwin Komenda (1904 – 1966) Austrian Automobile Designer

    Erwin Komenda (1904 – 1966)  Austrian Automobile Designer

    In 1934, he joined Ferdinand Porsche’s design bureau in Stuttgart and began work on the styling of the Volkswagen, the people’s car.Read More →

  • Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) Austrian American Architect & Designer

    Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) Austrian American Architect & Designer

    Richard Josef Neutra (1892 – 1970) was an Austrian American artist and designer. He was born in Vienna and lived in Los Angeles and southern California for much of his life.Read More →

  • Shoe Chair by Birgit Jürgenssen

    Shoe Chair by Birgit Jürgenssen

    Birgit Jürgenssen works with constellations and interactions influenced by gender-specific projections, physicality, and identification. Her affiliation in the feminist-oriented group DIE DAMEN (with Evelyne Egerer, Birgit Jürgenssen, ONA B., Ingeborg Strobl, and Lawrence Weiner) aided her in placing her objects between everyday life and role play. Read More →

  • Hans Hollein (1934 – 2014) Austrian architect and designer

    Hans Hollein (1934 – 2014) Austrian architect and designer

    Hollein was born in Vienna and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 1956. He studied in Clemens Holzmeister’s master class. He studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1959 and subsequently at the University of California, Berkeley. Read More →

  • Emanuel Margold – Austrian Architect, Interior Designer, Ceramicist

    Emanuel Margold – Austrian Architect, Interior Designer, Ceramicist

    He was a prolific designer of furniture, glass, and porcelain in Darmstadt.Read More →

  • Werkstätten Hagenauer Austrian metalsmiths

    Werkstätten Hagenauer Austrian metalsmiths

    Werkstätten Hagenauer were Vienna-based Austrian metalsmiths. Over its nearly ninety-year history, it was a family business in Vienna that produced fine, handcrafted objects for decoration and use. The workshop closed in 1987, but the company’s retail premises on Vienna’s Opernring, which opened in 1938, is still open today as a museum and shop.Read More →

  • Bruno Pollack (1902 – 1985) – Austrian furniture designer

    Bruno Pollack (1902 – 1985) – Austrian furniture designer

    Pollack invented a tubular steel stacking chair, model RP7, which was manufactured from c1932 and revolutionised auditorium seating with its stacking concept. Cox, a British furniture maker, was embroiled in a legal battle with rival Pel in 1934 over the Rp6 stacking chair, which Pel had bought the rights from Pollack.Read More →

  • Swarovski Austrian Glass Company

    Swarovski Austrian Glass Company

    Swarovski is an Austrian glass manufacturer. Daniel Swarovski founded the company in 1895. In 1895, he left Bohemia for the Austrian Tyrol. He established a factory in Wattens for the industrial production of cut crystal stones. From 1917 on, these stones were marketed as ‘Tyrolite,’ which is now the company’s industrial division.Read More →

  • Josef Maria Olbrich Austrian Artist, Architect and Designer

    Josef Maria Olbrich Austrian Artist, Architect and Designer

    Josef Maria Olbrich, born in Troppau, was an Austrian artist, architect and designer who worked in Vienna and Darmstadt. From 1882, under Camillo Sitte, he studied at the Staatsgewrbeschule, Vienna. In 1890, he studied at the Akademie der bildenden under Carl von Hasenauer.Read More →

You may also be interested in

Eugene Schoen (1880 – 1957) was an American architect and designer

Eugene Schoen (1880 – 1957) was an American architect and designer. He was born and professionally active in New York. He was one of the few American born designers during the 20s and 30s to achieve success. He studied architecture, Columbia University, New York, to 1901; Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, under Otto Wagner and others.

William Gray Purcell American architect and furniture designer – Encyclopedia of Design

William Gray Purcell was an American architect and furniture designer. He was active in Minneapolis and Philadelphia. In Minnesota, he established the architecture firm, Purcell and Feick, with George Feick and he was active between the years 1907 and 1909. Purcell and George Elmslie went into business over the war years.

Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.