After an introduction by Shelly Kappe, Dione Neutra speaks about her 700 letter-long correspondence with her husband, Richard and her use of this material in her autobiography. She sings folksongs, accompanying herself on the cello, including a piece from Piedmont in Italy, a French pre-revolutionary pastoral, and a Swiss song about calling the cows from the mountains. She discusses her husband’s success and continual lecture tours, but expresses her dissatisfaction with the degree of understanding conveyed by those who invited him.
Neutra describes how she met Richard and the connection of spirit that led to their first four years of correspondence prior to marrying. She describes Richard Neutra’s determination to create environments which assuaged the senses of his clients. She then recounts several events including a powerful talk in Lima that students used in their attempts to open the pedagogy of their school, and Neutra’s correspondence with Rudolf Schindler while stuck in Europe and hoping to come to the United States.
Neutra recites from a letter composed by Richard Neutra to her mother prior to their marriage. Richard, working in Zurich at the time as a draftsman comments on the importance of keeping alive his innate capabilities and not allowing them to atrophy with a blindfold on. He goes on to comment on the need to develop himself under different architects of character. Dione finishes her talk by reading from a letter in which Neutra speaks at length about his unfinished Forest Cemetery, commenting on some of the elements in architecture and life that most stimulated him.
