Kaufmann House Up For Auction
The Kaufmann House, designed by in 1946 by Richard Neutra, will go up for auction at Christie’s in New York this May. The house, a stunning example of mid-century architecture, recently showed up in a small article in the back of my local German newspaper Die Zeit. The photo that caught my eye was not the usual glamour shot (like the one above from New York Times) but one from an angle that made the house almost unrecognizable. Almost, except the Kaufmann House holds an inescapable beauty that is undeniable.
The current owners will place the home for auction alongside postwar and contemporary art, fitting company for an architectural masterpiece. And an appropriate approach that nods to the original owner’s tendency to “collect” architecture. Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr, commissioned Neutra to design this desert dwelling while Frank Lloyd Wright created Kaufmann’s woodland retreat, Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania.
The Times article goes in-depth into the current owner’s restoration efforts, which included the help of architects Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner, to bring the Kaufmann House from a state of neglect in the early 90s to its current gorgeous state of restoration. A Landmark Modernist House Heads to Auction also talks a bit about the dynamics of sales of such important works of architecture.
