Neutra, Big Man on Campus

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.

Architect Richard Neutra, who made his early reputation with Patchett’s pad (actually built for a health enthusiast named Lovell) is best known for forward-looking Southern California homes of the ‘40s and ‘50s, in which vast “curtain walls” of glass intimately link distant landscape views with indoor space. But he also designed numerous schools.

In the early ‘50s, Neutra--then in partnership with Robert E. Alexander--began meeting with trustees and faculty of fledgling Orange Coast College. Although he had been in the United States for about 40 years, Neutra may well have struck the folks in Costa Mesa as a visitor from another planet. Football? Pompom girls? What primitive rites were these?

Neutra envisioned a cluster of unpretentious, low-lying structures where students could study in sunlit rooms or enclosed patios, gather informally in tranquil open spaces and circulate under covered walkways. Maintenance problems (kids liked to throw stuff in the shallow pool alongside the Planetarium), the advent of air conditioning (bulky units mar the unspoiled flat roofs) and new educational goals have prompted many changes during the past 40-odd years. But Neutra’s legacy endures, particularly in the simple volume of the Robert B. Moore Theatre and the outdoorsy feel of the campus. “I like that retro feeling,” says Jim McIlwain, Orange Coast’s vice president for administrative services. “You just want to take your time machine and enjoy the serenity.”