Edgar J Kaufmann House The Desert House Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design

Table Of Content

• Homeless encampments are on the ballot in Arizona. Could California, other states follow?
• Three cities offer hope on California’s homelessness crisis
• Kaufmann House; Richard Neutra's Iconic Palm Springs Desert Modern Design
• Art and design exhibitions
• Latest Galleries in Homes for Sale
• In California’s Carmel Valley, a Picturesque Retreat Lists for $11 Million
• Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House epitomises desert modernism in Palm Springs
• RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIORS (

In 1945, Kaufmann acquired a large 200' x 300' (2.6 acre) site that was isolated near the foot of Mt. San Jacinto and studded with rugged desert landscape. His desert house was not designed to blend into the site in the Wrightian style; rather it was to be an object in space in the classical fashion of the European villa. Originally priced as $30,000, (the 3,800 sq. ft. home ultimately cost $300,000) the house turned out to be simple -- and simply expensive. Rectangular in plan, its form was essentially a glass pavilion with planar walls that extended into the site via two axes one north-south -- the other east-west.

Homeless encampments are on the ballot in Arizona. Could California, other states follow?

The Kaufmanns used the house mainly as their winter residence, relocating to Palm Springs during the colder months. After 1964 two subsequent owners altered the house, increasing the square footage from approximately 3,200 square feet to just over 5,100 square feet, which compromised the original design. In 1993, the house’s current owner hired Los Angeles architectural firm Marmol and Radziner to return the house to its original state by relying on many painstakingly researched original materials and production processes. The Kaufmann House achieved iconic status through its architectural innovation and the lens of Julius Shulman, one of the most influential architectural photographers of the 20th century. Shulman’s photographs of the house, particularly the striking image taken at twilight with the interior lit and the pool reflecting the house and sky, have become defining images of modernist architecture.

Three cities offer hope on California’s homelessness crisis

Major outdoor rooms are enclosed by a row of movable vertical fins that offer flexible protection against sandstorms and intense heat. Located at 470 West Vista Chino in Palm Springs, California, this masterpiece of architecture was designed to connect residents and visitors to the beautiful surrounding desert, letting the outside in and vice versa. The two-story, five-bedroom, five-bathroom, home was built in a pinwheel design with low horizontal planes that bring the house closer to the desert landscape, giving the illusion that it is floating amongst the mountains. This illusion is emphasized by the use of sliding glass doors that open up to the walkways and patios. The effect the glass doors give to the Kaufman House is that when they are opened, the interior and exterior become a singular flowing space. The Desert House stands in the northern part of Palm Springs, where the lower slopes of Mount Jacinto meet the plain of the Coachella Valley.

Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House epitomises desert modernism in Palm Springs - Dezeen

Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House epitomises desert modernism in Palm Springs.

Posted: Fri, 16 Feb 2018 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Kaufmann House; Richard Neutra's Iconic Palm Springs Desert Modern Design

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.

Art and design exhibitions

Modernist architect richard neutra built the five-bedroom house in 1946 as a retreat for harsh winters, with an emphasis on the connection to the surrounding desert landscape. Large sliding glass walls open rooms up to a series of terraces, the iconic pool and garden, paving the way for california’s concept of ‘indoor outdoor’ living. After kauffman, its original owner, died in 1955, the house stood vacant for several years, while it was restored in the 1990s by award-winning firm marmol radziner, who returned the residence to its initial form, size, and aesthetic integrity.

It wasn’t until 1993, when Brent and Beth Harris, a financial executive and an architectural historian, moved in that there was an attempt to bring the Neutra house back to its original splendor piece by piece. The result is a striking, sculptural layout resembling a pinwheel with various wings radiating from the central living and dining room. Throughout, there is a strong connection between the indoors and outdoors, reinforced through large swaths of glazing and shade-inducing vertical aluminum louvers that are also one of the home’s highlights. Richard Neutra, a Vienna-born architect, brought a unique blend of European modernism and Californian innovation to his projects.

In California’s Carmel Valley, a Picturesque Retreat Lists for $11 Million

Following the end of World War II, he was commissioned for the Kaufmann house, and it later became a beloved piece of the renowned International Style architecture he was known for. The variety of spaces, ranging from enclosed to semi-enclosed to open, transcends any traditional distinction between indoors and outdoors in favor of a continuous, human-made environment. Moreover, the new environment was designed so that its occupants could fine-tune its features for physical comfort, most notably the radiant heating and cooling systems for the concrete surfaces of the outside terraces. Lastly, within the hostile desert surroundings the new environment was to be a safe one as exemplified by the mirrors Neutra installed in unexpected places, which allowed the inhabitants to scan their immediate surroundings. Neutra used as basic materials stone, glass and steel, and tended not to depart from the range of colors than the desert offered, so that the house does not desentonase of their natural environment.

Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House epitomises desert modernism in Palm Springs

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 swimming pool creates a compositional balance of the overall design of the house. 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.

To continue their efforts of preservation, they decided to put the house for auction at Christie's auction for high profile, contemporary, art. They believed that only serious buyers interested in continuing the preservation of this historical site would purchase the house at an auction. The house sold at auction for 19.1 million dollars by an anonymous buyer but later fell out of escrow. Unfortunately, only glimpses of it can be seen from the street including its famous ‘gloriette’ roof deck. In the north wing another corridor opens along an outside patio that leads to two other rooms.

After having been significantly amended by its successive owners, current owners of the residence decided to return it to its original state. The architects removed the areas added and restored the house based on the famous photographs Julius Shulman did of the house in 1947. The architects decided to also return to the desert garden look it had in times of Neutra. In addition, they incorporated a discrete heating, air conditioning and ventilation system, and a new pavilion at the pool, known as the Harris Poll House. A double cantilever allows the absence of a corner post in the master bedroom (where the glass doors meet at a 90-degree angle) giving a powerful illusion of a floating roof. The extensive south-facing glass walls had to be covered with an inelegant system of exterior canvas drapes.

The architect championed the importance of “ready-for-anything” designs that could have open, multi-use spaces, and coined on this subject the concept “The Changing House” for an article he wrote in 1947 for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. Kaufmann passed away in 1955 and the Kaufmann House was left abandoned for several years. It then went through a series of several owners including famed singer Barry Manilow and Eugene V. Klein, who was the owner of the San Diego Chargers. During this time, it also underwent various interior and architectural changes without any thought of preservation from any of the ensuing owners. The roof was altered to add air-conditioning, wallpaper was put up in the bedrooms, and a wall was torn down in the living room to add additional living space. Following its stint with Hollywood’s best, it was again left vacant for several more years.

A combined living and dining space, roughly square, lies at the center of the house. While the house favors an east-west axis, four long perpendicular wings extend in each cardinal direction from the living areas. Thoughtful placement of larger rooms at the end of each wing helps define adjacent outdoor rooms, with circulation occurring both indoors and out.

Even before my first visit to Palm Springs, the building I most wanted to see was Richard Neutra's Edgar Kaufmann Residence. I knew the 1947 photos of the house by architectural photographer Julius Shulman which are among most famous and widely known architectural images of all time. Architectural historian John Crosse assembled an 82-page bibliography citing over 150 published articles on the house (most accompanied by Shulman photos) beginning with the house's completion through Neutra's death in 1970. But the house settled into obscurity with only 70 articles published about it after 1970 until the house was purchased and restored by Beth and Brent Harris in 1993. 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.

To the west, a kitchen, service spaces, and staff quarters are reached by a covered breezeway. In the northern wing, another open walkway passes along an exterior patio, leading to two guest rooms. From the street, the house looks beautifully layered with floating planes that rise in elevation as you move west. 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.

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). The Kaufmann House is an early example, and one of the clearest, of a post–World War II southern Californian modernism that closely integrates the building with its environment. For Neutra, however, the house also symbolized a universal type of dwelling for difficult-to-settle environments. 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.

That’s why the Desert House, built in 1946 by Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra for retail tycoon Edgar J. Kaufmann, stands out all the more. Fusing glass, steel, and stone, "it is an architectural marvel that helped define the modernist aesthetic," says Gerard Bisignano, partner at Vista Sotheby’s International Realty, who is handling the sale of the 3,162-square-foot home. A symphony of steel, glass, sandstone and stucco, it exemplifies California living with terrazzo flooring, mountain views and the famed central swimming pool.