Dion Neutra Speaks with AD About His New Exhibition in Los Angeles
If you meet Dion Neutra, he’ll gladly tell you about his role as the conservator of his father Richard’s personal estate and architectural legacy. The elder Neutra completed some 400 projects, often working with Dion, and it's no small task to keep so many modernist icons from ruin, all while maintaining your own architectural practice. The latter is the subject of “Neutra Post Neutra,” a new exhibition at the Neutra Institute Museum in Los Angeles that charts the course of Dion’s career.
“At some point people said to me, ‘What have you done since your dad passed away?’ As if what I did with him didn’t count for anything,” says Neutra. “But I had a 30-year career and completed hundreds of buildings with him, so that gave rise to this exhibition.”
Here, the 88-year-old architect talks about his earliest design recollections, his thoughts on preservation policies, and his current project, a hillside vacation home on the Honduran island of Roatán designed for his son, Nick.
Getting Started
“When I was 16, my dad said, ‘Would you like to learn to draft? It may be helpful in your life.’ He didn’t say, ‘Would you like to be an architect?’ When I got out of the Navy, I went to USC for a semester, then we thought it would be good for me to study abroad. I got to meet Le Corbusier in Paris—that was incredible. He showed me his painting studio and it was full of paintings, but he said, ‘I don’t want to be known as a painter. I want to be known as an architect.’ So he downplayed his art during his life. Nobody knew he was a painter.”
Preservation
“I got into preservation because many of our projects were at risk of being torn down or changed. For instance, the owners of the Scheimer House, in Tarzana, died about a year ago, and I heard the daughter is thinking to bulldoze it. We don’t have any tools in our government to positively save something—it’s all about bully pulpits and advocacy groups rescuing places at the last minute. Just about every country has stronger preservation laws than the U.S. I’ve recommended a blue-ribbon committee convened by the President where people come together and talk about making national policy on preservation. If we don’t act soon, we’re going to compromise the pictorial history of our country.”
Roatán Home
“I’ve designed projects for other people in my family, but none of them were built, so this is kind of unique. It’s a three-phase project: First was the garage building, which has two floors above it; next was the main house, which is a luxurious two-bedroom with a swimming pool; and then the third phase is the Aerie House, where my son is going to do some recording because he’s a sound engineer. When it’s finished, it will be pretty spectacular.”
Through July 30 at Neutra Institute Museum, 2379 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles; neutrarg