Displaying items by tag: richard neutra

1. How about Richard and Dion Neutra’s architectural masterpiece?

Designed by the seminal Modernist architect Richard Neutra and his son, Dion, this serene residence blends seamlessly with its surroundings. Built in Los Angeles’ Tarzana neighborhood in 1972, the architectural gem sits atop a nearly 3-acre expanse of land, providing 360-degree views of the stunning San Fernando Valley. The 5,500-square-foot estate features four bedrooms, vast walls of glass, and a luxurious outdoor area complete with a swimmer’s pool, a hot tub, and unique designer water features that surround the home’s exterior.

Beginning on July 12, Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, the former Los Angeles home of the Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra, will replace all mid-century furnishings with their Cold War-era counterparts from Eastern Europe. The objects, including chairs, tables, lamps, phones, pictures, books, and cooking utensils, will be provided by the nearby Wende Museum, which is devoted to preserving the Cold War artifacts of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Although the two design cultures share aesthetic tendencies, they have often been examined separately. The provocative installation, titled “Competing Utopias,” will present modern design from the East and West in a unifying context.

According to the Neutra House, the installation is meant to raise more questions than it could possibly answer. For example, Why do design objects from the East fit so seamlessly, often invisibly, into a high design mid-century home from the West? The exhibition looks at the Cold War era from a broader perspective than the typical political lens, focusing on the global competition that took place to see who would define what modernity looked like and how it functioned.

On March 29, 2014, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA will present the exhibition ‘California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way.’ The show will include over 250 mid-century modern design objects by pioneering designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra and Greta Magnusson Grossman. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this exhibition is the first major study of California mid-century modern design and the Peabody Essex Museum will be the show’s only east coast venue.

Works on view, which will include furniture, textiles, graphic design, ceramics, jewelry and architecture, will be contextualized within the creative climate of California and the social and cultural conditions that existed between 1930 and 1965. the exhibition will be divided into four thematic sections--Shaping, Making, Living and Selling--and will explore the origins of modern California design, the materials used, and how the movement proliferated worldwide.  

‘California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way’ will be on view at the Peabody Essex Museum through July 6, 2014.