ARCHITETTURA

Richard Neutra - A pioneer of sustainable architecture

Richard Neutra (1892-1970) is known as one of the greatest architects of the XX century, but his book "Survival through Design", written more than fifty years ago, is largely forgotten, though ecological and healthy building has become an important part of green movement. In his book Neutra pleads for architectural design based on the cognition of the physiological and psychological requirements of man and not only on "aesthetics" . Therefore it seems to be not useless to reproduce in this place some significant paragraphs of his book.

 

"Nature has too long been outraged by design of nose rings, corsets, and foul-aired subways. Perhaps our mass-fabricators of to day have shown themselves particularly out of touch with nature. But ever since Sodom and Gomorrah, organic normalcy has been raped again and again by man, that super-animal still struggling for its own balance. The have been warners, prophets, great floods, and new beginnings".

"What we here may briefly call nature comprises all the requirements and characteristics of live organisms. This entire world of organic phenomena is, in the escapades of our still obvious immaturity, often treated against "the natural grain" and contrary to the "supreme plan" - that of biological consistency and requirement. In former ages it was a sin to do this and for such failings the deity threatened to liquidate the sinners. We may now have dropped - perhaps too carelessly - the moral accent. Yet to us, too, the issue is still one of survival by virtue of wholesomeness, or damnation and death through our own default".

"In human design, we could conceivably see organic evolution continued, and extending into a man-shaped future. At any rate, that phenomenally intensive development in the multi-layered cortex of the human upper brain had not yet with certainty been proved a blind allay or a dismal failure. To be sure, this distinctly human brain harbors trouble, but it also may furnish some as yet untried survival aids. We have been laggards in calling upon all our potential powers and resources to arrange for us in a bearable manner an individual and communal living space. The toxic trash piles of our neglects and misdeeds, old or fresh, surround us in our physical environment. The confused wreckage of centuries unrelated to any current practical purpose, is mixed in a most disturbing manner with our often feeble, often arbitrary, attempts at creating order".

"Organically oriented design could, we hope, combat the chance character of the surrounding scene. Physiology must direct check the technical advance in constructed environment. This setting of ours is all powerful; it comprises everything man-made to supply man, from the airy storage compartment of our toothbrush to the illum ination of a speedway interchange, or of the neighborhood day-care center for toddlers".

"All our expensive long-term investments in constructed environment will be considered legitimate only if the design have a high, provable index of livability. Such desi gns must be conceived by a profession brought up in social responsibility, skilled, and intent on aiding the survival of the race that is in grave danger of becoming self-destructive".

"Design is the cardinal means by which human beings have long tried to modify their natural environment, piecemeal and wholesale. The physical surroundings had to be made more habitable and more in keeping with rising aspirations. Each design becomes an ancestor to a great number of other designs and engenders a new crop of aspirations"."

 

Through the mental work of design, which is supposed to improve our lives, the race appears generally to stray farther and farther from the natural scene. The paradisiacal habitat of earliest man is considered a myth today and his natural sit uation may originally have posed him harsh enough problems. Yet those of our man-designed, man-constructed environment are often more trying and more severe tests to our natural resistance".

 

"Man's own cramped-together creations, anything from underground sewage systems and subways to a badly hemmed-in sky overhead, irritatingly criss-crossed by mazing of electric wires, should not prove a inescapable as fate. Lightning and the plague, once so formidable, have been countered by proper measures; must we then here find ourselves helpless? Must we remain victims, strangled and suffocated by our own design which has surrounded us with man-devouring metropolises, drab small towns manifesting a lack of order devastating to the soul, blighted country sides along railroad tracks and highways, studded with petty "mere-utility" structures, shaded by telephone poles and scented by gasoline fumes?"

 

"Design, the act of putting constructs in an order, or in disorder, seems to be human destiny. It seems to be the way into t rouble and it may be the way out. It is the specific responsibility to which our species has matured, and constitutes the only chance of the thinking, foreseeing, and constructing animal, that we are, to preserve life on this shrunken planet and to surviv e with grace".

 

"That new and growing knowledge will above all be invaluable as an aid in programming. It will support us in arriving at a truly contemporary set of objectively valid criteria for determining the requirements of the consumer, the users of appl iances, vehicles, equipment, buildings, and cities. Whether the project in question is the construction of a small home or a large hospital, an extensive housing development or the campus of a college, those who will occupy the facilities and pay the cost must insure themselves against being victimized by designers pledged to obsolescent convention, or to mere novelty. Ultimately, the consumer himself must insist on security rendered by men of the right training and information, so that the environment co nducive to wholesome living and survival is achieved".

If you wish more information about Richard Neutra and his work join to
The Institute for Survival Through Design