cover image Richard Neutra's Miller House

Richard Neutra's Miller House

Stephen Leet. Princeton Architectural Press, $40 (176pp) ISBN 978-1-56898-274-8

In a world of coffee table architecture books that simply scan the surface of movements, styles and artists, this book's focus is refreshing: it takes a single, significant construction and explores it from beginning to end. The house that Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra created for socialite Grace Lewis Miller in Palm Springs, CA, was neither stylistically""innovative"" nor""transitional,"" Leet explains; its design""does not significantly deviate"" from the sleek, minimalist design of Neutra's other 1930s work. However, the extensive archive Miller kept documenting the house's planning, construction and subsequent fame allows Leet to analyze""the complex cultural conditions that directed its design""--among them: the personalities, life and work of both Miller and Neutra; the public's reticence to embrace modern architecture; the development of Palm Springs as a resort community in the 1930s, and the emigration of European architects to America. A vigorous, intelligent woman, Miller was a teacher of the Mensendieck System of Functional Exercise, and she wanted an open, airy environment that not only could hold a studio for her practice, but would bring in the ample sun from outside. The letters that she exchanged with Neutra suggest that she was""as vain, resolute and determined as her famous architect,"" and that their demanding collaboration brought out the best in each of their work. Leet's writing, while generally precise and clean, is occasionally marred by overwrought sentences, but this flaw does not detract much from his highly sophisticated, well-contextualized piece of work. 120 duotone illustrations.