In the early days of modern architecture, its alien forms were sold to the public using science. Architect Richard Neutra's "Health House" - designed and built between 1927-29 for physician Philip Lovell in the Griffith Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles - was featured in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Mr. Neutra's four-storey, steel-framed and stucco-clad house was graceful in the way it clung to its hillside site. But far outweighing any discussion of architectural merit were reports of its fresh-air sleeping porches, large areas of glass (to allow life-giving sunlight to penetrate), exercise and sports areas and the water-purification and juicing facilities in the kitchen. Even before that, in 1923, architect Le Corbusier wrote: "A house is a machine for living in." This now-legendary idea and the other, equally radical ones put forth in his book, Vers une architecture (Toward an Architecture), would resonate over the next few decades.
