Structures : neutra sweet look : the famed architect's moore house has undergone some change, but remains a prime example of his modernist style.

Postmodernism began in architecture in the ‘70s, when it was decreed once and for all that modernism--with its flat-topped, rectangular compositions, resistance to ornamentation and brainy

“strategies”--had worn out its welcome. Now it seems that postmodernism is having its own travails. What goes around comes home again. The restraint and focus of the moderns suddenly begins

to look appealing after a period of fashionable pluralism. Take the case of Richard Neutra, who died in 1970. The Vienna-born architect’s work--found mostly in Southern California--typified

the International Style of modernism, beginning in 1929 with his still-exciting Lovell Health House in the hills near Griffith Park. For anyone curious about Neutra, examples of his work can

be found in our own back yard. And interest in his work is undergoing a revival. This spring, UCLA hosted a show of Neutra’s drawings that brought new attention to the architect, some of

whose commissions were on the university campus and in the Westwood area. An example of Neutra’s finest handiwork, particularly from his late period, sits immersed in vegetation off Foothill

Road in Ojai. It was here in the early ‘50s that Neutra was commissioned by James and Orline Moore, who were disciples of Krishnamurti, a spiritual leader based in Ojai, to create a house

on what was then a 40-acre parcel. The house won the prestigious American Institute of Architecture First Honor Award in 1954, and it remains one of the most celebrated works of architecture

in Ventura County. Although Neutra was concerned with a new order of architecture, one in which decorative excesses were stripped away, he was also concerned with the secret indoor life of

the inhabitants of his houses as well as the living landscapes. At the Moore House, the large glassy pond, which wraps itself around the mountain side of the house, provides natural

counterpoint for the rationality and pragmatism of the structure. Reportedly both architect and client were happy with the end result. But relations became strained in the late ‘50s, when

the Moores built a rather slapdash addition to the house, a cabana outside of the pool, which mimics Neutra’s style, minus the elegance. When the Moore House was completed in 1952, Neutra’s

career was in full swing. In 1948, he had finished the highly regarded Tremaine House in Montecito. The Moore House of today is a different entity from the original. More to the point, the

context has changed. The sprawling land has been parceled off. At the same time, the foliage and growth has taken over, to the extent that the house now sits in a garden, its own private

enclave. In this way, the Neutra credo of marrying a house with its landscaping has come to fruition, years later. Currently, the house is owned by Hugh and Joyce Syme, who became the home’s

third owners five years ago. Both work in real estate and spend much of their time in their primary home in Santa Monica. On a recent afternoon, they gave a tour of the place to this

reporter. The most dramatic juncture is the east-facing entryway, as you pass through an Oriental fence. The bridge takes you over the famous moat-like koi pond that deposits you in the

corner of the main living space. Open plans were key to Neutra’s dictate of creating a functional “machine for living” (the phrase of his mentor, Le Corbusier). The living area flows

naturally into the home entertainment center nook--one of the many built-in features, along with a pipe organ tucked into the living room walls--and into the dining room and the kitchen. No

doors or walls disrupt the continuity. A narrow corridor along the backside of the house served as an art gallery, where now some of Neutra’s original architectural renderings are hanging. A

guest house below has been integrated into the main residence with a pathway lined with extended roof beams. The outer shell of the house is liberally lined with tall windows, creating not

so much a barrier between the outside and in as a transparent filter. Call it see-through architecture. “It’s like living outside,” explained Joyce. Neutra was insistent on the fusion of

interior and exterior space. An indoor tree outside the main entrance further confuses your sense of what’s in and what’s out. As if on cue this afternoon, a hummingbird, deceived by the

glass cage, flew in the open door and tried vainly to escape out the huge glass panes. “The hummingbird’s in the house again, Hugh,” Joyce exclaimed. Hugh seemed unimpressed, noting, “We’ve

had all kinds of birds in here, even a falcon one time.” Even birds can be victims of modernism. On this secluded, self-enclosed property, a sense of detachment from the muted hum of Ojai is

tangible. In the Time cover story more than 40 years ago, Neutra was quoted as saying, “I try to make a house like a flowerpot, in which you can root something and out of which family life

will bloom. . . . I want every house I build to be a steppingstone to the future, and modern architecture gets a black eye if it’s not backed by minute structural documentation. “The

designer may never be found out until the day of judgment, but if he supplies his victims with a daily round of tiny or coarse irritations, unwittingly or not, he’s a menace.” Neutra, it

seems, was ahead of his time in more ways than one: He was user-friendly. MORE TO READ