The Quintessential L.A. House: Lovell Health House designed by Richard Neutra By Hector Andres Gonzalez Cantu
What could be more L.A. than a house built on a cliffside for a wealthy doctor, designed by an Austrian ex-pat that was decades later featured in a film about the corruption of the valley, based on a novel by one of the most quintessentially Losangelino writers alive, James Ellroy? The answer, of course, is nothing.
The Lovell Health House, designed by Richard Neutra, was defined by a series of firsts: the first clear example of European International Style architecture blending with West Coast Americana, the first private dwelling to use mostly a steel frame structure usually reserved for skyscrapers, and one of the first uses of gunite, a technique that involves the usage of a pressurized concrete hose to have continuous concrete structures in irregular terrains.
Richard Neutra arrived in America in 1923, from his native Austria with a resumé that included studying with Adolf Loos and learning professionally under Erich Mendelsohn, two foundational architects of the Modern Movement. He furthered his experience with a short stint with Frank Lloyd Wright, the preeminent American architect of the era—and perhaps of all eras—and worked several jobs with different architects before starting his practice in the late 1920s. The Lovell House, which showcased his various influences, was the first private residence he designed. In the Lovell House, the disposition of planar slabs from Frank Lloyd Wright’s works is streamlined via Le Corbusier’s conceptual flourishes, from the entry promenade with an almost roof-garden, to the steel columns that allow for a free plan and the horizontal windows.
The hybrid steel-concrete structure not only applies techniques that were mostly used in skyscrapers, it even harkens back to steel bridges through the use of tensors to support the cantilevered sections of the building.
The rhythm of the façade is defined by alternating glass windows and white plastered walls, echoing Le Corbusier’s early work. All of the windows and the white sections, that continue throughout all four facades, have different lengths, and through asymmetry achieve a rhythm that flows towards the house’s surroundings. The abundant windows and terraces, and the clever use of the site and slope, allow for panoramic views of the valley.
Through the use of semi-exterior terraces along the building’s plan, Neutra manages to blend the interior and exterior of the house, softening the powerful contrast of the rigidly geometrical façade. These semi-exterior spaces, combined with the more completely exterior ones, represent some of Neutra’s main architectural obsessions: how to blend outside and inside, and how the relationship of architecture with nature and its surroundings is assimilated by the architect.
he client, Philip Lovell, was a progressive doctor preoccupied with humanity’s relationship to nature and promoted a healthcare therapy based around a connection to natural surroundings, vegetarianism, and an active lifestyle. The house fit like a glove.
รง
A polar opposite of Dr. Lovell was the inhabitant of the house in the 1997 crime film L.A. Confidential, based on James Ellroy’s novel of the same name. The owner of the house in the film, Pierce Patchett, is an apparently respectable businessman that, behind his own façade, is the boss of a prostitution ring that specializes in providing movie star look-alikes for wealthy clients. The house, of course, is not at fault. Richard Neutra’s Lovell house, though sometimes forgotten in favor of his later works, like the Kaufman House, was revolutionary in its context. It announced the arrival of the European International Style in America, and though Neutra’s blend of influences would translate to more unique works in later years, the inspirations of the Lovell house, worn on the sleeve, remain a powerful statement of Modern Architecture. And most of all, the perfect marriage of client-architect in Neutra and Dr. Lovell can be held as proof of what can be achieved when the future user of the house and the designer are in sync with their needs and obsessions.
References: Redkwa, Ana “Casa Lovell: 1927-1929” 47 al fondo, no. 4, 1999, pp. 6-11. Biblioteca Digital Arq. Hilaria Zalba de la Facultar de Arquitectura y Urbanismo de la Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Retrieved from: http://bdzalba.fau.unlp.edu.ar/greenstone/cgibin/library.cgi?a=d&c=investig&d=AR78 Kroll, Andrew. “AD Classics: AD Classics: Lovell House / Richard Neutra.” ArchDaily, ArchDaily, 18 Jan. 2011, www.archdaily.com/104713/ad-classicslovell-house-richard-neutra. “Filming Locations for L.A. Confidential (1997).” The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, www.movie-locations.com/movies//l/LA-Confidential.php. Retrieved on January 13th 2021 Joan Marset. “LA CASA LOVELL HEALTH DE RICHARD NEUTRA, PREPARA SU VENTA” Metalocus, Metalocus. 30 January 2020, https://www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/la-casa-lovell-health-de-richard-neutraprepara-su-venta All images obtained from the referenced sources.