National Youth Administration Centers

National Youth Administration Centers

As the chief architect of the National Youth Administration, David R. Williams valued Richard Neutra’s creative approach to school buildings, leading him to advocate for awarding Neutra the commission for Channel Heights and other federal projects. In addition, Neutra was hired as a consultant for the National Youth Administration, a federal project which began in the post-war years to prepare boys for careers in trade or technology. The two National Youth Administration Centers—in Sacramento and San Luis Obispo—were each to include a dining hall, kitchen, dormitories, assembly grounds, the superintendent’s house, and parking. Neutra collaborated with a group of boys on the plans and specifications, training them in the fundamental principles of architecture and the craft of model making. Two parallel rows of dormitories had white siding and window frames painted in dark trim. Differences between Sacramento’s flattened terrain and San Luis Obispo’s gentle slopes gave the same design different effects.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 150.