Richard Neutra

So, Margo, you're not looking forward to moving back to Venice ("Home, Sweet [Safe, Sane and Sanitary] Home Away From Home," by Margo Kaufman, May 23). Well, as a longtime Venice resident, I was relieved to hear that. You probably don't fit in here anyway. Anyone who lives in Marina del Rey obviously prefers 1960s-style architecture and the recently divorced to the interesting streets and people of Venice. If you change your mind about Venice, call me and I'll be glad to drive you to a more compatible place, such as, say, Woodland Hills.

Richard Neutra tends to get all the credit for his architectural projects while his collaborators often go unmentioned ("Neutra, Big Man on Campus," by Cathy Curtis, So SoCal, Feb 7). I was his partner for the last 30 years of his life and participated in many of the projects for which he gets solo credit--including the auditorium pictured with Curtis' article. Also, his partner, Robert Alexander, who introduced him to that campus, should have been included in that photo caption. Readers interested in the current state of the Neutra practice can find some interesting materials displayed on our Web site at http://www.

The elegant roue, Pierce Patchett, of "L.A. Confidential," likely would have raised an eyebrow at the very idea that the Austrian emigre modernist who designed his futuristic 1929 steel-and-glass hideaway in Los Feliz would ever work on a community college.

Cal State Northridge, which has sought to fashion a new face since the 1994 earthquake devastated its campus, is about to get a beauty mark. California State University trustees have approved Robert A. M. Stern's design for the $16.8-million Arts, Media and Communication building, which is expected to be completed by August 2000. It will replace the Fine Arts Building, which was designed by Richard Neutra and torn down in 1997 after sustaining heavy earthquake damage.

What strikes you first about Richard Neutra's renderings, on view at the Couturier Gallery through Nov. 29, is how tame they seem. Neutra was an internationally acclaimed figure in his time, a star of architecture's radical avant-garde. In 1932, he was one of a handful of architects chosen for the Museum of Modern Art's landmark "International Style" show--the show that launched Modernism in America. Yet these drawings, mostly done from the late '20s through the '60s, seem conventional.

More performance art than fine art, construction workers Thursday began demolition of the Cal State Northridge arts building, knocking down the concrete walls designed by noted modernist architect Richard Neutra. University employees clapped and federal officials posed in hard hats as a front loader crashed through the three-story fine arts building that was damaged beyond repair in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. One section of the structure sunk 6 inches after the quake.

More performance art than fine art, construction workers on Thursday began demolition of the Cal State Northridge arts building, knocking down the concrete walls designed by noted modernist architect Richard Neutra. University employees clapped and federal officials posed in hard hats as a front loader crashed through the three-story fine arts building that was damaged beyond repair in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. One section of the structure sank six inches after the quake.

Even a down-on-his-luck architect deserves humane housing. When the budding Modernist hero Richard Neutra built a home along Silver Lake Reservoir in 1932, he had a budget of $10,000 and a tiny sliver of land. What he built became a nimble experiment in urban living. That experiment burned down 30 years ago, only to be replaced by a more elaborate version that Neutra designed with his son, Dion. On Jan.