Tour guide: “And what happened in 29?”
Students: “…”
Me, immediately: “Financial crisis…”
I know I’m older than you but damn, it’s your country you guys. Anyway, here’s the house’s story according to the website:
Seventy-five years ago, in Los Angeles, with a no-interest loan from Dutch philanthropist Dr CH Van Der Leeuw, Viennese-American architect Richard Neutra built a radical "glass house" with rooftop and balcony gardens on Silverlake Boulevard. He called it the VDL Research house, after his benefactor. It was designed to accommodate his office and two families on a small 60 x 70 foot lot.
Maybe a bit small for two families but it’s interesting to me to look at a modest modern house, there are usually such gargantuan palaces. The layout is very interesting, maybe a bit too many little corridors on the right. Despite a busy Silver Lake Blvd, it is very calm in the back (best acoustic shield is stuff + air + stuff + air, works every time).
There’s a lot of different textures and colors and material inside even though you don’t notice it at first. It must be a nightmare to maintain but it does add to the charm quite a bit (thinking about that tiled door that disappears into the wall). The built-in design is the same, it adds so much to the tightness and neatness but have you ever tried to fix a wall mount toilet? It’s horrible. The challenge is really to find a good balance and we should be able to achieve that with today’s technology. Nevertheless, 75 years ago Neutra was at the top of tech and beyond (the motorized panes that you see on the right move accordingly to the sun).
I wanted to see what a lot of glass does when you’re behind it, inside and of course it was quite hot but, we were like 30 people in small rooms with the 11am sun on us. And most of the glass can slide open to let the air come in so, it’s not that hot. Plus in winter in Cali? Yummy.
Tour guides were super cool and chill even though the older lady gave me that “nigga, you are lost” look at first but once she saw how excited I was and that I knew my shit, I was allowed to not take my shoes off, ha!
You see that Cantilevered roof? The edge is probably made of at least six different material. If not ten.
It is a lovely place. So zen. Well, one LA modern house visited, 7,654 to go.