Architectural Plans and IP

The house to the left, deigned by famed Architect Richard Neutra, and immortalized by photographer Julius Shulman is not for sale. 

However, in the future you could get your very own copy of that house or another house, directly from the work shop of Richard Neutra. 

A new partnership between, Dion Neutra (Richard's son),  and the Neutra Office and California Architecture Conservancy,  allows for individuals to license the right to build their very own Neutra-designed home. Dion Neutra and the Neutra Office will even supervise the construction. 

Of course, the price is "upon request" but is supposedly line with existing custom architectural plans. 

I was once told that if you have to ask the price of something, you can't afford it. That is likely the case here, and that's unfortunate. 

It is really unfortunate that existing plans, already created and merely stuffed into a portfolio somewhere, are being priced as though they were new works of commission. The benefit for Dion is that the plans represent the sunk IP development cost of Richard Neutra not Dion Neutra. Attempting to extract that cost now, on a per copy basis, is a great way to ensure that those with the money to afford it, will resort to hiring a living architect. It is a little like saying every time you wanted to hear a song from your favorite artist, you had to pay to go to a concert. 

One goal of IP to place the maximal level of control over a work in the hands of its creator. However, a competing goal is to maximize the value of the work. In this circumstance, it is clear (maybe not to them) that it is the desire of the Conservancy is to minimize the wide scale reproduction of Neutra design homes, at the expense of well...nothing.

Pricing the plans such the "brand" value of the Richard Neutra is maintained (i.e. expensive), does nothing to advance the state of modern architecture, nor does it maximize the inherent IP value of Richard Neutra's work. 

One of the problems in American Housing stock is that the places in which people who appreciate Neutra style homes (i.e. Modern, yuppie types) live, are the same places that have pretty well developed housing stock. It is generally not possible (economically, or otherwise) to move into, say Scarsdale, and build a Neutra home from scratch. You would likely need to tear down an existing house and build a Neutra home over the bones of that. Once you have spent a significant amount of money tearing down a perfectly good home, odds are, you are going to replace it with something highly customized to your needs. Odds are, a Neutra Home, is not highly customized to that affluent individual's particular needs. 

Instead of pricing it in a way that only a very few people will avail themselves of the opportunity, Conservancy should be pricing the plans to hit the urban / upscale suburb market. By making the plans available for a small fee, the range of potential builders increases dramatically. 

I am not advocating forcing IP owners to license their works at cut rate prices. However, it makes sense to sell the plans to modern, aspirational housing, to actual aspiring artistic people. These people generally do not pay for custom architectural plans, because they are expensive. Here, Neutra has no cost, so the profit margins, at any price, are wide.  


Jordan Garner -