The Neutra Approach to Architecture

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🗞️ The Story

From Hippocrates to Sigmund Freud, brilliant minds have always looked for a cure for human neuroses. But what if the answer to anxiety wasn’t actually found in therapy or pharmaceuticals, but in architecture? As strange as it may sound, Austrian-American architect Richard Neutra proposed just that.

With the design of several avant-garde residences for rich, primarily West Coast clients, Neutra's career skyrocketed during the 1930s and 1940s. Unsatisfied with financial success alone, the architect was developing a more profound, ambitious vision for his life's work: he felt he could treat his clients' neuroses through his houses.

The secret to this healing, he claimed, lay in a fluid relationship between interior and exterior. His goal was to open the innermost thoughts of the occupants rather than create a smooth transition between building and environment, à la Frank Lloyd Wright. Neutra felt he could undermine the psyche's boundaries to its natural environment, allowing mental energy to flow freely.

He went as far as building out elaborate physician-like client files based on “client interrogations”. One format he frequently employed utilized two columns, one with the heading “Client Need,” the other, “Architectural Response.”

Living in a Neutra-designed home probably didn't eliminate all anxieties for its fortunate residents. However, the pursuit of achieving harmony between the home and its occupants seems like a meaningful endeavor regardless.

🏡 Buy It For The Architecture