RESEARCH ARTICLE

‘Visual excitation’ in Richard Neutra’s residential architecture: An analysis using weighted graphs and centrality measures

  • Michael J. Dawes ,
  • JuHyun Lee ,
  • Michael J. Ostwald
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  • Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture, School of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia

Received date: 25 Jan 2022

Revised date: 16 Apr 2022

Accepted date: 16 May 2022

Published date: 29 Dec 2022

Copyright

2022 2022 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Abstract

The famous modernist architect Richard Neutra argued that movement through, and understanding of a building could be choreographed by controlling the visual stimuli that is available to a person. These claims are tested by quantifying the lines of sight and intelligibility of five of Neutra’s residential designs. A computational method, weighted axial line analysis, is used to investigate lines of sight and movement in five of Neutra’s house designs. The cumulative lengths of axial lines required to reach public and private spaces are compared, and centrality measures are calculated for each design that are weighted with line length data. Intelligibility metrics are calculated from these centrality measures. The first hypothesis, that visual stimuli in Neutra’s architecture is greater when accessing public rather than private spaces is supported by the results. The second hypothesis, that Neutra’s architecture is highly intelligible, is not supported by the results. This research tests two theories used to explain the works of a famous architect and it develops a new variation of well-known Space Syntax technique, to account for axial line lengths.

Cite this article

Michael J. Dawes , JuHyun Lee , Michael J. Ostwald . ‘Visual excitation’ in Richard Neutra’s residential architecture: An analysis using weighted graphs and centrality measures[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2022 , 11(6) : 1092 -1103 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2022.05.003

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