The Kaufmann House, also known as the Kaufmann Desert House, was built between 1946 and 1947 by Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra. Throughout his career, Neutra designed more than 300 houses among other projects, but the Kaufmann House is considered one of the architect’s best works, being also the most famous and recognized.
In 1946, businessman Edgar Kaufmann commissioned Richard Neutra to design a vacation home in Palm Springs, California. Edgar Kaufmann is known not only for owning and operating the Kaufmann department store, but also for commissioning two works of modern American architecture: a decade earlier, Kaufmann had hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design his famous Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania.
The Palm Springs home is oriented east-west, maximizing sunrise and sunset views. The design includes five bedrooms and five bathrooms, with a backyard patio and pool overlooking the desert landscape and the San Jacinto Mountains to the west.
Access to the house is through a path surrounded by rocks and native vegetation; from this point you can see the floating areas of the house with steel frames, the sliding doors and the movable metal siding on the windows that doses the light and offers protection from sandstorms and intense heat.
The floor plan is designed in the shape of a cross, allowing each area of the house to have natural lighting and good ventilation. The center of the house functions as a connection to the other areas; the dining room, the living room and fireplace are located here, while the bedrooms and bathrooms are at the end. The connections are through galleries or glazed corridors overlooking the different gardens. This distribution allows the rooms to be completely private.
One of Neutra’s most outstanding works in this house is the ability to connect the interior with the exterior. All the walls are clad with the same material, color and texture. The floor has a radiant slab system so that, when crossing the threshold of glass doors, there is no temperature change for the inhabitants.
The design and construction of the Kaufmann house occurred at a special time in American history, as World War II came to an end. The style of the house belongs to the Mid-century Modern which was in vogue at the time, mainly on the west coast of the country, and which consisted of open floor plans, steel frames, unevenness to delimit areas, continuous views to the outside through large windows and, above all, the use of materials such as steel, glass, wood and aluminum.
For Neutra, the Kaufmann House was the largest commission of his life, both in terms of size of the site and budget. It was a project where he was able to develop all his ideas about spaces.
Once built, the house was a great success. Like the iconic Stahl House, the photographs were taken by renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman.
Until mid-century, architectural photography was not common. People had to visit the buildings to see, study and experience them. When photography became more accessible, magazines and print media became the primary way to discover architecture.
The first Kaufmann House publication was made in Los Angeles in 1947. Shulman’s photographs —especially the sunset shot from the southeast overlooking the pool with the mountains in the background— allowed people around the world to see the house.
Richard Neutra and Julius Shulman
Over the years, the Kaufmann house had some changes going from the original 297 square meters to almost double that. It has also passed through several famous owners, such as singer Barry Manilow or the former owner of the Chargers football team, Gene Klein. The restoration work was widely awarded, and the house is recognized as one of the most important homes of the 20th century and one of the 10 best homes of all time in Los Angeles.
The house remains a private residence, but is part of the architectural tour of homes built around mid-century in the California area within John Entenza’s Case Study Houses project. It is currently for sale at a price of nearly $25 million.
