Construction and architecture of the Neutra Office Building
Neutra built the Silver Lake office building in 1950 to house his own architectural practice. Neutra designed the building with his son, Dion Neutra, acting as project architect and Red Marsh as the contractor. The one-story office building includes two reception areas, two conference rooms, and a large open office space. The building also includes two residential units with an enclosed garden at the rear of the building. The building has been carefully preserved by Neutra's son, Dion. Many original built-ins and design details remain intact, including custom strip lighting, acoustic tiles, exposed ducting, operable louvers, and blue Aklo glass.
Operation as Neutra's design studio
The building has been called "a piece of L.A. history since most of L.A. buildings were probably dreamed up in this very office." Jay Platt of the Los Angeles Conservancy has said of the building's significance, "The real importance of the office is that it provided the creative environment in which Neutra produced all of his now famous homes." In fact, his early works pre-date the building, but it was in this building that Neutra designed many of his landmark buildings, including the U.S. Embassy in Karachi, Pakistan, the , the Gettysburg Cyclorama Building, the , and the Huntington Beach Public Library. The building remained the site of the Neutra architectural practice even after Neutra's death in 1970; Dion Neutra continued the practice at the site until the 1990s.
Historic designation
Known mostly for his residential designs, the Neutra Office Building in Silver Lake is Neutra's only surviving commercial structure with Neutra's original design. The Neutra web site describes the building as "the only surviving example of Neutra commercial design that is still intact." Marketing materials for the building call it "a pristine example of the work of one of the seminal architects of the Modernist movement" and "the only remaining example of Neutra commercial design, still with its original look." The building was designated a Historic Cultural Monument by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 2000 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Listing of the building for sale in 2006
After 56 years of being owned by the Neutra family, the building was listed for sale in November 2006 at an asking price of $3,500,000. The sale was conditioned on the buyer accepting a protective conservation easement, which Dion Neutra considered essential to prevent his father's work from disappearing. He told the National Trust for Historic Preservation: "I'm hoping to find a suitable steward while I'm alive that would take care of the building into the foreseeable future." The marketing brochure compared the building to works of art by Gustav Klimt and Jackson Pollock and went so far as to say: "The purchase of this icon would be equivalent to acquiring the last remaining Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece." One critic wrote of Dion's "delusional price comparison of his father's office building to the paintings of Klimt & Pollack." As of July 2008, after 20 months on the market, the Neutra web site continued to list the building for sale.
