Iconic Conversation on Richard Neutra + Film Screening 'Simply Complex' on the Lovell Health House

• Lovell Health House. Photos Barcelo Photography Inc., courtesy of The Agency.
• Concrete pillars and a massive foundation support the hillside home.
• Cavernous living room with built-in furniture designed by Richard Neutra.
  
  
• A dramatic stairwell leads from the entryway to the living room.
• Ribbons of windows wrap around nearly the entire length of the living room.
• Study.

• Lovell Health House. Photos Barcelo Photography Inc., courtesy of The Agency.
• Concrete pillars and a massive foundation support the hillside home.
• Cavernous living room with built-in furniture designed by Richard Neutra.
  
  
• A dramatic stairwell leads from the entryway to the living room.
• Ribbons of windows wrap around nearly the entire length of the living room.
• Study.

Leadership Circle Event on Sunday 28 February 2021
Livestreamed at 10 am PST / 1pm EDT / 7pm CET

Neutra's Lovell Health House will be the theme of a live streamed Leadership Circle Event (via Zoom) that serves as a fundraiser for the Iconic Houses Network. Following a screening of a new film 'Simply Complex' on the 1927-29 Lovell Health House, there will be a Q&A with its director Josh Gorrell and a conversation between Dr Raymond Richard Neutra and Neutra expert Dr Barbara Lamprecht.

Fostering Well-Researched Responsible Design: The 1929 Lovell Health House and Today’s Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design
In an era when tuberculosis was endemic, Neutra began his career in America by deploying new technology and landscape design to bring UV light, natural ventilation and the experience of the ever-changing sights, sounds and smells of nature to the Lovell family and the children that Leah Lovell brought there for her progressive school.

After the film (watch the trailer here), Raymond Neutra will interview Barbara Lamprecht about the scholarly foreword she has recently written for the illustrated reissue of Neutra’s 1953 book, Survival Through Design, and how the Lovell Health House and that book presage the current interest in architectural phenomenology, environmental psychology and the neuroscience of aesthetic experiences. The Neutra Institute has plans to deploy the Neutra legacy to foster those who today are doing research and responsible design.

The Lovell Health House is currently for sale.

Dr. Barbara Lamprecht is a Pasadena-based 'qualified architectural historian' specializing in the rehabilitation and documentation of Modern buildings. She is the author of Neutra: Complete Works (Taschen, 2000), Neutra (Taschen 2004), and Richard Neutra: Furniture: The Body and the Senses (Wasmuth, 2015). Lamprecht earned an M.Arch. at Cal Poly Pomona and her Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool. Her dissertation explored Neutra’s nineteenth and twentieth century roots in neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and landscape, concentrating on his philosophy of biorealism, arguing for an architecture based on experience rather than on form-making. She has served as a consultant on the rehabilitation of many Neutra houses; the former Garden Grove Community Church; and the Jardinette Apartments, designed by Neutra with Schindler, 1929.

Raymond Richard Neutra is the youngest son of Richard Neutra. After a public health career in environmental medicine and epidemiology at several universities and the California Department of Public Health he has been drawn back to the legacy of his father and brother. He serves as president of the Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design (www.neutra.org). He has been active in the preservation of the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences and several other Neutra projects. He is an 'ambassador' for the Iconic Houses Network and has written scholarly articles on his father’s career. In addition to preservation, he endorses the Neutra commitment to socially and ecologically responsible design inspired by evidence.

For further research we would recommend participants to read Raymond Neutra's Kindle Book Cheap and Thin or listen to the interview on Ted Wells’ Living: Simple.

Josh Gorrell is an artist, videographer, director, writer, architectural designer and a modern, historical preservationist who has won an award for the Richard Neutra, Kun House 1 (1936) restoration in 2015. Josh also saved Rudolph Schindler’s Van Dekker House (1940) from certain destruction in 2009 by purchasing it. Josh currently resides at the world-famous Richard Neutra Lovell Health House in Los Angeles. He has been learning about and documenting the history of the amazing, modern icon and is currently working on a video with a book to follow.

For 2021, the following special Leadership Circle Events are planned:

Spring 2021
A live streamed visit to the Van Schijndel House in Utrecht, The Netherlands, the house that inspired Iconic Houses founder Natascha Drabbe to set up the Iconic Houses Network.

Fall 2021
A live streamed tour of Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City.

Winter 2021
A surprise visit to another extraordinary house, later to be unveiled...

Become a Leadership Circle Member
If you haven’t already renewed your Iconic Houses Leadership Circle membership, this is the perfect time: we will give you access to the recorded version of this tour and invite you for the upcoming livestreamed tours. It is through the donations of this support group that we can continue the work of identifying and sharing often forgotten modern architectural masterpieces throughout the world, creating a forum where homeowners can learn from experts in the field and each other, saving threatened buildings and promoting modern house museums. As a Leadership Circle member, you are a partner in the important mission of the Iconic Houses Network. And it is thanks to your membership support that all of this work is possible. We thank our donors who joined us online on 8 November at the exclusive visit of the California House. As long as traveling and the in-person gathering of groups is impossible, we will organise these kind of house tours online. We look forward to hearing from you if you also want to join this support group at the $/€1,000 Leadership level and above.

Exclusive membership benefits at the Leadership level and above include:

• invitation for you and your guest to the annual Leadership Circle event,
• exclusive access to award-winning houses,
• conference and lecture discounts, and
• travel advice.

We look forward to hearing from you if you also want to join this support group at the $/€1,000 Leadership level and above.

Subscribe to the recorded house tours
If you are interested in following the recorded versions of these tours, this is possible for $/€300 per year. With one tour per season each tour is offered for $/€75, which you can watch together with your friends or colleagues. It will take you to private houses that are normally not open to the public or places in the world where you do not have to travel.

U.S.-based donors can support our activities in a tax-efficient way through a contribution to the American Friends of Iconic Houses at the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS). Because KBFUS is a 501c3 public charity, donors may claim the maximum tax benefits allowed by US law.
We invite you to join or upgrade your membership today. For gifts by check: write your check to King Baudouin Foundation, write ‘American Friends of Iconic Houses’ in the memo section of the check, and send it to KBFUS, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10020. For smaller gifts by credit card or PayPal, please click on ‘Support us’ button on our homepage.

In The Netherlands the Iconic Houses Foundation is an ANBI (non profit). Gifts can generate tax benefits under certain conditions.

For more information on how to become involved, please reach out to Natascha Drabbe, Executive Director and Founder of the Iconic Houses Foundation, at ndrabbe@iconichouses.org.

Posted December 22, 2020