The Tropical Side of Richard Neutra
Richard Neutra in Puerto Rico or Puerto Rico in Richard Neutra? It is the subject of Katherine Ettinger's most recent book, which tells the story of a reciprocal appropriation between architecture and environment. At the same time, it teaches us a little-known facet of this famous Austrian-American architect.
To be said by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, Puerto Rico's history can be seen as a "long twentieth century", which begins in 1898 and is not yet over. The most telling feature of that century is the country's entry into the American legal sphere under whose economic and cultural influence it had been since the mid-19th century. The nascent and aggressive American imperialism made what was then a community of small and medium-sized landowners, into a society of great sugar mills and agricultural easines—with capitalist production relations—dedicated to tobacco cultivation. Sugar, rum, tobacco, and labor force—cheap, underqualified, recently separated from its field-producing instruments—were the items that Puerto Rico exported to the empire. And in the opposite direction, Puerto Rico came the presence of that "other" that through its multiple interventions sought the penetration of imperialism throughout Latin America.
In this complex panorama the presence of the architect Richard Neutra in Puerto Rico is presented as a not-so-explored side of this historical relationship, one perhaps less voracious and more open to understanding of mutual needs.
Richard Neutra (1892-1970), an Austrian American-nationalized architect, is recognized worldwide for designing modern houses, primarily for a wealthy California clientele in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. His work is an example of attention to detail, in particular to technical solutions, and adaptation to the climate of the region within a modern language.
His travels to Latin America developed mainly in the 1940s, at a stage of maturity after the realization of works such as the Lovell House of Rest (1927-1929)—the first domestic work in the United States built with a steel frame—or the VDL Research House (1932), which had positioned him as one of the most relevant modern architects in the United States.
It was in late 1943 that the State Department's Division of Cultural Cooperation, under the orders of Puerto Rico Governor Rexford Tugwell, commissioned the architect to design building infrastructure to promote social welfare. This was the starting point of a first modernity in Puerto Rico, because through the government's drive for the construction of public works, it was sought to consolidate a comprehensive development plan of the island.
Housing, health and education were the three emergencies to which he gave architectural response, themes that remained "like a ring to the finger" because at that point in his career Neutra had a particular interest in these items. To do this, it had to focus on particular conditions: a limited budget and the restriction of the material palette involving the adoption of a refined aesthetic according to time and cost of execution.
Neutra used his experience to translate local architectural concepts such as the so-called "deep balcony"—a covered-open area that related internal to outer spaces—and to retake vernacular solutions related to the local climate . He proposed low and well-ventilated structures using materials such as reinforced concrete that had the advantage of being locally produced and offering seismic and hurricane resistance.
Katherine Ettinger's book Richard Neutra in Latin America. A look from the south is fundamental to understanding this process of architectural appropriation, and of the construction of Puerto Rico's modern image with the world. It allows us to know how Latin America received Neutra and, in the other way, how his experiences in Latin America appeared in formulating his thinking about the relationship between architecture and region, the importance of climate in the design and the role that advances in materials and construction technology could have in solving problems associated with poverty. "Seen from the South, the Puerto Rico episode, Richard Neutra's travels and writings have another side," perhaps less attached to California's "glamour," but certainly more social and humanitarian.
By laureate Martínez Figueroa