Windshield: Richard Neutra examines a lost landmark of modern architecture and the extraordinary architect-client relationship that produced the Windshield House. Richard Neutra designed this summer home on Fishers Island, New York, for John Nicholas Brown. Completed in 1938, the quintessentially modernist house was Neutra’s most significant residential building outside of Los Angeles and his only design on the East Coast. Named for its extensive glass exterior, the Windshield House was appropriately appointed on the interior with Brown’s large collection of furniture by the Finnish designer Alvar Aalto and two prefabricated Dymaxion bathrooms by R. Buckminster Fuller. The house was destroyed by fire in 1973, but the unusual collaboration between Neutra and Brown is documented in a wealth of surviving correspondence and sketches. Windshield: Richard Neutra includes architectural drawings, models, photographs, furnishings and other design objects from the house, as well as correspondence between the architect and client. This exhibition was organized by the Harvard University Art Museums, and the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design. A catalogue, published by the Harvard Design School and Yale University Press, accompanies the exhibition.
Windshield: Richard Neutra
Heinz Architectural Center
Mar. 1âMay 25, 2003
Exhibition Images
Support
The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generous support of the Drue Heinz Trust. General support for the exhibition program at Carnegie Museum of Art is provided by grants from The Heinz Endowments and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Windshield was organized by the Harvard university Art Museums in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Art, Rhode Island School of Design, and the Harvard Design School.