Frenchman at Neutra's House

RECENTLY I was invited to architect Richard Neutra's old house in Silver Lake to check out the "intervention" by the French artist Xavier Veilhan, who created a number of sculptures to refer to the pioneering modernist's life and work.

The press events and opening were quite groovy -- movie stars, French people, music by a member of the French band Air.

Los Angeles' Silver Lake, of course, is arguably the best neighborhood in the country for modernist domestic architecture. (That's even if you don't count Silverlake Wine and Rockaway Records.)

Here is my story. The work is up for a few more weeks. And in my years of paying attention, Neutra's VDL House -- still not perfect -- has never looked better.