Richard Neutra’s Rush City: From Mobilization to McCarthyism to Americanization

As CIAM and ideas of the utopian city began to coalesce in Europe, Richard Neutra, having recently immigrated to California, developed strategies for a distinctly American utopia. Between 1923 and 1930 he envisioned Rush City Reformed as a “statistic-based” solution to the frenetic pace of life in the modern, automobile-dominated metropolis. In this theoretical project, Neutra attempted to improve quality of life by seamlessly incorporating various modes of transportation, including automobiles, high-speed trains and airplanes, while preserving safe, vehicle-free pedestrian zones. By the time he assumed the presidency of CIAM in 1944, his ideas for Rush City had already materialized in his master plans for defense-worker housing in Avion Village (1941) and Channel Heights (1942). Given the context of wartime mobilization, critics, the public and the corporations that funded these neighborhoods received them with great acclaim. Elysian Park Heights (1950-1953, never built), which Neutra designed in collaboration with Robert Alexander, also originated in Rush City, yet under McCarthyism critics and the public vehemently attacked this project as un-American. In 1955, Neutra and Alexander returned to Rush City’s core ideas in their master plan for housing for the US Air Force at Mountain Home (Idaho) and the urban redevelopment of the Port of Caracas (never built). This time, Rush City was conflated
with Cold War US military might and global Americanization. Using documentary evidence extracted from the Neutra Archive at UCLA, this paper will explore these pendulum swings, and will postulate that Neutra’s ideas remained constant despite shifting public perception.