|
back to top
|
Letter to Beverly Hills City Council
RE: Kronish House Demolition
Back to Kronish Blog Page
July 22, 2011
THE NEUTRA INSTITUTE FOR SURVIVAL THROUGH DESIGN
July 22, 2011
Beverly Hills City Council, Rm. 400
455 N. Rexford Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
RE: Pending Demolition of 9439 Sunset Boulevard (AIN 4350002009)
Honorable Councilmembers and Mayor:
By way of this petition, supported by many letters you may already have seen, we urge City Council to review the matter concerning the potential demolition of this singular single-family residence at 9439 Sunset, the Kronish House, designed by Richard and Dion Neutra and completed in 1955. The property was previously surveyed and is included in the City's historic resources inventory. Demolition of a historic property of this high caliber by world-renowned architects. the Neutras, would cause harm to the City's reputation through the loss of a nationally significant masterpiece of Modern architecture. The property is for sale, and it can easily be surmised the lot, if cleared, would likely be redeveloped in the near future. This letter strongly recommends City Council take immediate action to issue an urgency ordinance to delay demolition until this matter may be fully reviewed and appropriately resolved. As you are probably aware, there is legal precedence for the issuance of an urgency ordinance for protection of highly significant historical resources in Beverly Hills.
Review of the City's online property information for 9439 Sunset indicates a plan check is in progress to abandon gas service in the public right-of-way. Personal communication with a Beverly Hills City Planner also revealed a ministerial permit has been issued to cap the sewer. As you may be aware, these steps are required prior to issuance of a demolition permit. No replacement project has been proposed for the property, hence, no discretionary permit is required and CEQA has not been triggered. The only way to delay demolition is for City Council to issue an urgency ordinance directing staff to undertake review of the historic property, to determine if imminent demolition would potentially cause harm to the City of Beverly Hills.
The Kronish House is likely the largest and probably the most imposing of the houses designed by the Neutra Practice in North America. Completed in 1955, the 6,891 square foot residence was designed with an innovative and distinctive pinwheel plan Barbara Lamprecht has called "a pinwheel plan on steroids." Author of two books on Richard Neutra, Lamprecht describes the Kronish Hosue, "the interstitial spaces are filled with pools and plantings, akin to Roman villas with interior atria and impluvia, with an elaborate spatial sequence of outdoor and indoor rooms and ever-changing views of landscape and plantings" -- DEAD MAN WALKING? THE KRONISH HOUSE IN BEVERLY HILLS. As Lamprecht has shown, other existing comparable residences only survive abroad, including the Alfred de Schulthess House (1956) in Havana, Cuba; the Jose Joaquin Gonzalez-Gorronda House (1962) in Caracas; the Gunther Pescher Villa (1968) in Wuppertal, Germany; the Professor Martin and Christina Rang Villa (1961) in Konigstein in Taunus; and the Ambassador Walter and Mrs. Inger Rice House (1964).
In addition to the pinwheel plan and the Modern landscape design and interior/exterior relationships, the design of this residence incorporates the best of the Neutras' philosophy of "sinneswelt" or world of the senses, where the physical and psychological implications of sensory perception form the basis for the Neutra's "techne" or language of architecture, and from whence their architecture derives its experiential qualities and meaning. As discussed in Richard and Dion Neutra's treatise, Bauen und die Sinneswelt (Dresden, 1980), Modern materials are assembled in abstract compositions, shaping free space where social and cultural use is intimately tied to the occupant's needs and manners of living, creating a seamless environment within which to fully experience the art of Modern living, and wherein the separation of interior and exterior, made possible by this marvelous Mediterranean climate, is dissolved into an abstract, highly sensory environment. As one of the Neutra's most artful and important residential projects in North America, the Kronish house fully embodies and is highly representative of Neutra's mature design philosophy as applied to a magnificent Southern California residence in Beverly Hills. Neutra's architecture and philosophy of design was highly influential in the development of Modern architecture in the United States and throughout the world. There is no other comparable residence of this size remaining in North America.
We strongly urge City Council to issue an urgency ordinance immediately, directing City Staff to review this matter fully before this masterpiece of Modern architecture is lost to the world forever. It has cultural and aesthetic value that will continue to remain highly relevant to architects, students and the community both locally and around the world. The residence is a keystone in the Modern architectural history of Beverly Hills. Please do not allow demolition of this masterpiece to go forward. See the Neutra website for original Shulman images of what this masterwork looked like in its heyday; http://neutra.org/kronish.html.
Given some additional time and marketing, surely a well heeled patron of the arts can be coaxed to rescue and restore this masterpiece!
Sincerely,
Dion Neutra
back to top
|