International Style Modernism Revisited

Recently I wrote about the 1952 Redondo Beach, California Civic Center.

Comments from readers indicated that not many of you were impressed with this example of mid century International Stye modernism. Let’s drive a mile south of the Civic Center to see how you like another iteration of the style. I’ll choose not a civic but a religious structure. After all, we travel the world to see remarkable churches, temples, synagogues and chapels. We even pay admission fees and stand in lines to gawk at St. Peter’s Basilica, Hagia Sophia, Bath Cathedral or the Scrovegni Chapel. Not only that, I’ll make it one designed by an architect whose name figures large in Los Angeles, Richard J. Neutra (NOY-truh). That ought to do it.

That’s the Riviera United Methodist Church, built in Redondo Beach in 1958. By that time, Neutra’s reputation was firmly established, and he’d designed innumerable projects, the bulk of them in southern California. You’re almost certainly familiar with one of his landmark designs, the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, from 1946. There are more iconic views of it, but this is the portion I was able to capture from the street.

Likewise, I have only exterior views of the Riviera United Methodist Church for you.

Inside is a large, soaring sanctuary lit by the glass of the eastern wall you see, and by stained glass in the opposite wall.

In An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, Gebhard and Winter describe the building this way:

“An openwork Constructivist post-and-lintel composition of steel and wood emphasizes the entrance to the sanctuary.”*

I wasn’t familiar with the “Constructivist” attribution, and after looking it up, I’m only confused. A movement from Russia in the 1920s and ’30s, it doesn’t seem to bear directly on this building. However, Neutra (1892-1970) was born and educated in Vienna, and worked in Europe for a number of years before emigrating to the U.S. by 1923. It’s possible that Gebhard and Winter consider that Constructivist movement to be part of his early influences. Today he’s primarily known for his influential role in adapting International Style modernism to an open-air look suited to southern California. He helped shape the mid century modernist aesthetic along with his slightly older contemporary and onetime employer in Los Angeles, R. M. Schindler (also originally Viennese).

By ’58, Neutra was in the final year of a nine-year partnership with Robert E. Alexander, and the Riviera United Methodist is rightfully credited to the Neutra-Alexander firm.

There are a lot of Neutra’s buildings standing and in use today, including a significant number of residences within easy reach of me. The challenge is photographing them, because many are in heavily landscaped, reclusive settings. I’ll track down a few more over time.

Meanwhile, there’s one additional detail from Riviera Methodist to note. Look more closely at the background of the above photo. That’s the Pacific Ocean visible beyond the tall palm tree. Brunelleschi did all right with the dome for Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, but he didn’t have an ocean view to pose it in front of.

What’s your opinion? An impressive modern design? Leave a comment.

Licensable, high resolution versions of some photographs in this post, and select images from other Under Western Skies posts are available on Shutterstock.com. Click on the linked photos, or CLICK HERE to view the Underawesternsky photo portfolio.

© Brad Nixon 2018. * Quotation and other information © Gebhard, David and Winter, Robert, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles, Gibbs Smith; Layton, Utah, 2003.