CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/8/2019

Revelations abound in 'Richard Neutra: The Story of the Berlin Houses 1920–1924'

Best known for his sleek yet flexible multifunction-plan Los Angeles bungalows of the 1930s through the 1960s, the renowned Austrian Modernist Richard Neutra actually began his career in Switzerland and Germany between the World Wars. Jewish and a close friend of Sigmund Freud's entire family before he emigrated to the United States in 1923, Neutra designed a small development in the Zehlendorf suburb of Berlin that is the subject of this fascinating new book from Hatje Cantz. Featuring radical, bright colors and experimental features like a revolving stage in two of the homes, this work pointed very clearly to Neutra's near-future breakthroughs in California. Featured photograph, snapped in 1924, captures the revolving stage at either Onkel-Tom-Strasse 85 or 87, which was designed to transform the living room into a library, a dining room or a music room at the push of a wall.