Vitruvian echoes Neutra's methodology

Richard Neutra is considered one of modernism's most important architects. Recently, his son Raymond visited our office, shop and job sites. Today he sent us these interesting parallels in prefabricated, light construction:

1925-1950 Diatom Series

After World War I ended, Modernists began imagining a heroic future on paper. The images powerfully rendered the shock of the new. Neutra devised his own proposals for hypothetical projects in the 1920s and 1930s to generate ideas on urban design and building technology. These proposals had a direct impact on his work, from unbuilt worker housing to high-end private homes. Rush City Reformed served as his theoret­ical metropolis. The Diatom Series served housing, exploring not only materials and building systems, but also the modern tract house and the implications of the car, ("Diatom" refers to crushed algae seashells. Even through the 1950s, Neutra held to his conviction that "diatomaceous earth" was the key to creating "steam-hardened earth" akin to lightweight concrete, which could be made into insulated panels called Diatalum for walls and floors. He even attempted to establish a for-profit corporation. The additive eventually proved to be too soft and crumbly, but has many uses today.)

One Diatom design was inspired by the one building representing the promise of American technology: the circus tent. In his 1930 book Amerika. Die Stilbildung des neuen Baum in den Vereinigten Staaten (America: New Buildings of the World) Neutra wrote that that membrane structure with its central post fulfilled all his requirements for ''lightness in construction": "... in North America, one can view the gigantic tent of the multiple ring circus of Barnum and Ringling Brothers around the middle of the 19th century as the most characteristic architectural production. Developed for erection, dismantling and rail transport almost in the span of hours, in whose frame­work are arranged stairs, folding seats for many thousand spectators as well as electric and water installations [the way that] the constructive members, such as covers and ropes, function only as mere tensile stresses, and therefore are of minimal dimen­sions, imparts to the tent also in other ways prototypes for our era which views light­ness of construction as an architectural duty and dear to its heart ..."

Whether he was inspired by the mobile tent or by Buckminster Fuller's 1927 Dymaxion House with its central mast, which he also admired, Neutra used this strat­egy only once. This was Diatom I, "One-Two," a house typically no more than 1,000 sq. ft. One central unit (three ganged bays 17' 8' x 22' deep with 3'6" overhangs) could be flanked first by one and then another unit. (Reminiscent of Le Corbusier, not only does the sublimely rendered design include a roof garden, but in a 1930s cartoon-like manner, Neutra also depicted gently smudged, rounded ends of autos, peeking out from below the pilotis of the house.) The short walls of the central unit are solid while the long walls are primarily glass from end to end, so the spaces feel bright, open and loft-like, enhanced by a 4' overhang on both sides. Floors, roofs and walls all consist of Diatom panels. A prefabricated kitchen and bathroom made up the mechanical core.

The roof is suspended with tension cables from a series of masts whose central steel columns are set in contrived steel footings anchored in the ground, thus elimi­nating "over-dimensioned" concrete Footings. They were to be adjustable and por­table, perfect for instant housing. While these look more like exquisitely fussy watch gears than footings, for Neutra they were quite viable. Though never manufactured, he was granted patents for some of them in the late 1940s. He also designed plans for manufacturing diatomaceous earth panels, which were published in architectural journals. He designated production schedules and conveyors. Neutra even worried about union affiliations. "What would traditional carpenter unions say?" he asked.

Another, larger Diatom house, Diatom IV, posed an opposite hypothesis. It was heavier, built of concrete and wood. At one end, concrete piers acting as spider web, extended from the ends of the main volume to create a heavily articulated terrace. Diatom IV's design echoed the elongated volumes of Frank Lloyd Wright 1910 Robie House in Chicago. With its ventilated openings above lowered beams, it was Neutra's reference point for his Puerto Rico classrooms, which led to his thesis for the Tremaine House.

Neutra never ceased in preaching the gospel of prefabricated houses. He did blame the consumer for their love of "tradition, because we don't have a tradition that is scorned, referring to the changing parade of house styles. What was needed, is first an understanding of the "intimate relationships in modes of living... What if we were to build a car the way we build a house? Chaos! The 'rugged individual' in each prospective home buyer is flattered into 'expressing himself' instead of squarely facing the technical and economic facts of life... In spite of ingrained association of 'my home, my castle,' a minimum dwelling is not and cannot be independent or sufficient. Isolated by itself, it must remain unconvincing as a message for progress when submerged in an amorphous city stretching on endlessly . . ." His Diatom models were included in his architecture proposals on paper for "194X," Architecture Forum's famous postwar housing program in which the "X" represented a future for the taking.'