Palos Verdes High School

Palos Verdes High School

Resembling a sprawling village, Palos Verdes High is comprised of a grouping of structures amounting to a total 138,000-square-feet on a 37 acre site that was built for a cost of $4.5 million. The large sloping site was graded into two plateaus separated by a concrete retaining wall. The upper plateau contains classrooms, auditorium, indoor-outdoor stage, and assembly rooms for 3,000. The lower plateau houses two shop buildings, the physical education building and playing fields. Due to the community’s strict legislature on roofs and materials, the rooflines had to be pitched and the structures vertically enlarged in order to support the mandated clay tiling. Despite this, Neutra was able to maintain a sense horizontality by employing flat overhangs above walkways offered the user’s the experience of flatness.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 402.