Vdl Research House: Richard Neutra

Abstract The genesis of the VDL Research house was a meeting in Basel between its architect, Richard Neutra, and the man for whom it is named, C. H. van der Leeuw in 1930. It was a critical moment in the lives of both men. Neutra was on an around‐the‐world promotional tour following the completion of the Lovell house in Los Angeles in 1929, an event that had quickly established his international reputation. For Neutra, then 38, it was the end of a long apprenticeship, education in his native Vienna and office work in Germany and America, which included short stays with Erich Mendelsohn and Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1926 Neutra moved to Los Angeles at the urging of his former classmate, Rudolph Schindler, and the Lovell commission followed soon after. Van der Leeuw, the director of the van Nelle coffee, tea, and tobacco company, had recently commissioned two pivotal International Style buildings – his own house and the Van Nelle factory – both in Rotterdam, both the work of Brinkman & Van der Vlugt. One year later, soon after Neutra visited Rotterdam, van der Leeuw visited Neutra in Los Angeles. Neutra relates that when van der Leeuw asked him why he had not built his own house, he replied that he lacked sufficient capital. Van der Leeuw asked how much he needed and gave him a check on the spot. Throughout his life Neutra always referred to it as the VDL research house, even after its rebuilding, and always insisted that the house was not merely an architect's home but a scientific experiment, that van der Leeuw's gift made possible a radical rethinking of the American house, revolutionizing the form of building, the process of construction and the science of design.