BLESS N°63 Neutra Dasein

Curated by Douglas Fogle and Hanneke Skerath

This summer the historic Neutra VDL Studio and Residences in Silver Lake will become the home of the Paris and Berlin-based design studio BLESS (Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag). Responding to the unique architectural environment of Richard Neutra’s Los Angeles home and work space, BLESS will bring their own contemporary design ethos to this icon of Californian mid-century modernism. In a project that will be equal parts installation, artist residency and model home for alternative ways of living, BLESS will transform the Neutra VDL House into a design laboratory and a site of conviviality. Originally known as designers of wearable fashion, BLESS has spent many years exploring unusual design solutions for everyday life.

BLESS No. 63 Neutra Dasein (“Dasein” being the German word for “being”) will include several architectural and design interventions into Neutra’s house that will mesh the architect’s ideas about health and modern living with their own philosophical take on living in the present moment. Looking at the optimistic architectural vision that was offered by Neutra’s modernism and reinterpreting it through their own contemporary lens, BLESS will investigate and expand on the architect’s ideas about the house as a therapeutic structure. 

For this project BLESS is collaborating with the textile manufacturer Kvadrat and VS, the current manufacturer of Neutra’s original furniture designs, in order to “dress” the VDL House with textile interventions and new BLESS-ified versions of Neutra’s furniture. These new experiments will be shown alongside existing BLESS designs such as their classic N°56 Carpethammock, N°56 Neckrestdesk, a massage chair that can also be used to read and work in different positions, and N°60 Chairwear B fur, a series of stools that double as furniture pets.

As much a residency and workshop as a design installation, the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences will become a social space where the public will be invited to spend time exploring and participating in BLESS N°63 Neutra Dasein. The project will be accompanied by a salon program and workshops devoted to questions of design. The schedule of events will be announced on the VDL website. 

About BLESS
Founded in 1997 by Desirée Heiss and Ines Kaag, Paris and Berlin-based BLESS is best described as a platform of creation. BLESS create products and situations that connect people to their surroundings and atmospheres in the celebration of Jetztzeit, a term that the critic Walter Benjamin used to describe the potential of truly embracing the possibilities of the temporal present—a revolutionary “now”—filled with energy and possibilities of connecting to an imagined better future. Their works span the realms of fashion, visual arts, sports, design, social activities and architecture.

BLESS has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions devoted to both art and fashion in institutions worldwide.

About the Neutra VDL Studio and Residences
Originally constructed in 1932 and 1939 and then rebuilt after a fire in 1965, Richard Neutra’s VDL Studio and Residences in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles is an icon of mid-century modern architecture. In 2017 the Neutra VDL House was named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Today the house is under the stewardship of the College of Environmental Design (ENV) and Department of Architecture (CPP ARC) at Cal Poly Pomona and is led by its resident director Professor Sarah Lorenzen.

Support
This project has been made possible by the generous support of Chara Schreyer and Gordon Freund, HGA, Alisa and Kevin Ratner, Mark Grotjahn, Laura Donnelly, Good Works Foundation, Johnston Marklee, Dori and Charles Mostov, Sylvia Rhone, Sybille Duerkop, Nayla Audi, Mameg, J.K. Brown and Eric Diefenbach, David Kordansky Gallery, Greene Naftali, Tanya Bonakdar, Jeff and Marla Michaels, Stephen and Dana Sigoloff, Chan Luu, and Kathi Cypres. 

In-kind support has been provided by Kvadrat and VS America. 

Organizational support has been provided by Blum and Poe Gallery and LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design.