Customer Reviews

Richard Neutra's Miller House

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This book presents the people, ideas, and history behind Richard Neutra's for Grace Lewis Miller in Palm Springs, California. The house and the process of its design and construction are well documented with reproductions of important texts, drawings, and photographs. The book's contents are fascinating for their intimate, direct presentation of these primary materials.

While many photographs, drawings, and documents are presented here for the first time, the author's discussion and explication of this historically significant material is generally dry and academic. While Mr. Leet puts the project into a variety of contexts, the overall effort lacks direction and focus. That the house itself is worthy of a book-length monograph is without dispute. However, the author's attempts to intellectualize the material fall flat. A variety of interesting (but generally unrelated) material is included as part of an attempt to put the project in historical context, but these illustrations and examples tend to be somewhat forced and/or obscure. In addition, the selection of the images includes what appear to be gratuitous displays of the flesh. Such illustrations seem to appear when the text is driest, as if the somewhat sensuous nature of the images may help keep the reader from dozing off to sleep.

Throughout the book, I regularly felt the desire to skip passages of text hoping to find something more compelling, original, or informative. Many writers dealing with the modern movement in architecture incessantly present stale rationalizations for the necessity for International Style modernism. These discussions typically deal with modern man's need for health, sunlight, and exercise as justification for the resulting abstract geometrical forms. Of course, one can exercise just as well in classically styled buildings, although the details and ornament tend to clutter the setting undermining the look of strength and vitality. The simplicity of modernist architecture tends to enhance the sleek, well-toned look of athletic bodies; an impassive, monotonous context tends to exaggerate a person's visual qualities, whether positive or negative.

What this book essentially tells us: Mrs. Miller taught the Mensendieck system of exercise, she had the foresight to hire Neutra, and ended up with a wonderful modern winter home. The examples of partially clothed female bodies, including Mrs. Miller's, seem designed to pique our curiosity. Apparently, Mrs. Miller hoped the svelte images of her would have a similar effect on her client base. However, despite her personal beauty, impeccable taste in architecture, advertisements praising her exercise regime, and membership in Palm Spring's prestigious clubs, her well-intentioned desire to create a successful business teaching "functional exercises" never became more than an idea.

The author's selection of titles and headings can sometimes border on the pretentious as with "Eliminating 'Phantomic Extension'," "The Deluge," and "Scorpions and Black Widows". In the chapter entitled "Construction by Remote Control," three of the five photographs of the construction depict Neutra and his assistant standing at the building site; the other two photographs show the house under construction with no one at all. So much for remote control building.

With respect to the book's publication, its production quality is excellent. The graphic design is simple and appealing. The sans-serif font is elegant, crisp, and most appropriate to the subject. Unfortunately, it is also rather small. When the reader repeatedly comes upon entirely or essentially blank pages, its hard not to think that the font chosen could have been one or two points larger. While graphically and aesthetically interesting, the excessive use of white space seems creates the regrettable impression that there was insufficient material available to fill a book. The selected colors are appropriately muted and the photographs beautifully printed.

Great thanks go to Princeton Architectural Press for publishing high-quality books on topics typically given insufficient attention by other publishers in the field. In this case, the historical material is worthy of their high standards, but the author's text is somewhat less compelling.