The large horizontal bays, widely pierced concrete overhangs, and offsets in the plan create visual continuity between the different spaces of the house, blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior. This interpenetration of spaces is further amplified by the optical effects of mirrors and reflecting pools, which reflect light, architecture, and vegetation. The reflecting pools are an integral part of the architectural project and respond to Neutra’s intention to illuminate the house in all weather conditions. Strategically placed walls conceal neighboring structures and ensure the privacy of the residents.

Through these methods, the landscape becomes an architectural element and a design feature in its own right, both inside and outside the house. Here, as in other works by Richard Neutra, the architecture fosters a relationship with nature that is simultaneously intimate and expansive. The experience of domestic life is enriched by a “physiological and psycho-sensitive” connection between humans and the elements, water, air, and light.

Richard Neutra (1892–1970) was a prominent figure of the Modern Movement in the United States. Originally Austrian, he studied at the Technical University and the School of Architecture in Vienna, where his teachers included Max Fabiani and Adolf Loos, and later worked for the expressionist architect Erich Mendelsohn in Berlin in 1921. He moved to the United States in 1923, where he encountered Prairie School architects, including Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. He opened his own architectural office in 1925 in Los Angeles and quickly built numerous modern villas for a wealthy clientele, many of which are now famous, such as the Lovell Health House (1929), the Beard House (1934), the Von Sternberg House (1936), and the renowned Kaufmann House (1946), built in the desert for Edgar Kaufmann. He also designed numerous public buildings, large-scale facilities, housing developments, and urban planning projects.

Between 1960 and 1970, he designed eight villas in Europe: four in Switzerland, three in Germany, and one in France (the Delcourt House).

A scholar and passionate designer, Neutra developed an architectural practice centered on the relationship between humans and their environment. Inspired by California, its landscapes, and its climate, he created lightweight, metal-framed structures that allow for completely open interior spaces, extending and opening spectacular views of nature, in line with his conception of luxury and the “American way of life.”