Richard Neutra’s Leddy and Davis Residences, photographs courtesy of Open Space.Open Space is an ongoing series of videos, accompanied by still photographs, about modern architecture in California, produced by Elias Tabache and filmed and edited by Mick Aure.
Two videos in the series focus on houses in Bakersfield. The first, Neutra in Bakersfield, features two houses by Richard Neutra, the Davis House of 1937 and the Leddy Residence of 1958. The video is narrated by David Coffey, founder of Modern Office Environments and current owner of the Davis House, and artist and dancer Patricia Stockton Leddy, original owner of the Leddy Residence.
In a letter to the Los Angeles Times in 2003, Leddy wrote,
I’m proud to call myself a modernist. I’m neither post- nor neo- but a genuine modernist who traveled east to study with Martha Graham, then returned to California to flourish under the guidance of Neutra, my architect. His spaces didn’t order me around. Instead, they taught me the importance of spatial awareness, as did Graham with her movements. From them I learned how architecture and dance cannot be separate. I have lived with that reality for more than 50 years. I wouldn’t call my relationship to Neutra’s spaces as cozy, but vital. The relationship is an organic one, central to that well-being you feel.
The second Bakersfield video, also narrated by David Coffey, is on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ablin Residence, which began construction in 1958, shortly before Wright’s death, making it the last of his projects to be completed.
Find the videos here:
Ablin Residence |Frank Lloyd Wright 1958-61
Cover image of Wright’s Ablin Residence, courtesy of Open Space.
