Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

At the dawn of his international fame, architect Richard Neutra was approached by a St. Louis socialite, Grace Lewis Miller, to design a small winter home on the edge of glamour-baked Palm Springs. Miller wanted an open, light-filled house that could also act as a studio for her fashionably avant-garde exercise course in posture and grace, "The Mensendieck System." This unique program, combined with the desert landscape and the proactive health-minded client appealed to the idealist inNeutra. The frequent, fervent dialog between Neutra and Miller, who had great mutual respect, produced a work of forward-thinking and artful architecture.
In Richard Neutra's Miller House , Stephen Leet traces the conception and realization of the house, examines the complex relationship between architect and client, and shows how the Mensendieck System influenced the creation of this seminal Neutra project. Beautiful duotone photographs by Julius Shulman, excerpts from the detailed correspondence between Neutra and Miller, and sketches and drawing provide valuable insight into the design process.
Like the houses of Albert Frey, a contemporary of Neutra's who also build in the desert, the Miller House shows how architecture, the California landscape, and an interest in well-being can intersect in a moment of the architectural sublime.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In a world of coffee table architecture books that simply scan the surface of movements, styles and artists, this book?s focus is refreshing: it takes a single, significant construction and explores it from beginning to end. The house that Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra created for socialite Grace Lewis Miller in Palm Springs, CA, was neither stylistically ?innovative? nor ?transitional,? Leet explains; its design ?does not significantly deviate? from the sleek, minimalist design of Neutra?s other 1930s work. However, the extensive archive Miller kept documenting the house?s planning, construction and subsequent fame allows Leet to analyze ?the complex cultural conditions that directed its design??among them: the personalities, life and work of both Miller and Neutra; the public?s reticence to embrace modern architecture; the development of Palm Springs as a resort community in the 1930s, and the emigration of European architects to America. A vigorous, intelligent woman, Miller was a teacher of the Mensendieck System of Functional Exercise, and she wanted an open, airy environment that not only could hold a studio for her practice, but would bring in the ample sun from outside. The letters that she exchanged with Neutra suggest that she was ?as vain, resolute and determined as her [famous] architect,? and that their demanding collaboration brought out the best in each of their work. Leet?s writing, while generally precise and clean, is occasionally marred by overwrought sentences, but this flaw does not detract much from his highly sophisticated, well-contextualized piece of work. 120 duotone illustrations. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.