This year is starting off, well, very well.
First there was the email the other day from the current owners of Eliot Noyes' 1951 Hersey House in Southport Connecticut. As I stated before, I am working on a a visit.
Now this.
While at Borders the other night I picked up Taschen's book on Neutra by Barbara Lamprecht. It is part of their Basic Architecture Series. I have always admired Neutra's work but had focused most of my energy here in the East since it was well, closer.
After thumbing through it I paused at the list of works at the rear I found three houses listed in Connecticut. Time to go to Google.
Then listed on MidCentury Architecture was a comment from Tom Andersen (who maintains the excellent ModernHouseNotes with his wife Gina Federico) asking about Connecticut Neutras. They had an address. I went down today to see it.
[caption id="attachment_224" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Neutra's Glen House from the street."]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_223" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Richard Neutra's Glen House"]
[/caption]The house looks to be in good condition, much better than these shots taken through a growing snowstorm would lead you to believe. It is, in fact, quite beautiful.
It is striking that, unlike many of the houses designed by Breuer, Noyes and the like, the house is right on the street in full view stuck in the middle of the landscape. From what reading I have been able to do this would seem to follow what I believe was a difference between he and and the people who followed Wright. Wright believed that the house had to blend with the landscape while Neutra, from my understanding, did not. He was very conscious of the blurring of the lines between inside and outside but understood that no matter how you spin it, a house is in fact a man-made machine in a field.
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