Outrage: one of only three Neutra dwellings in Palm Springs, the Maslon House was recently demolished in an inexplicable act of architectural and cultural vandalism. (View).

After the 28 February sale of the house, a contractor walked into the City of Rancho Mirage next to Palm Springs on 19 March and paid $45 for a demolition permit. Nine days later, all that remained of Richard Neutra's Maslon House, a palazzo designed for modern art collectors Luella and Samuel Maslon, was a pile of debris that looked as if it had been vomited up from the earth. Serving as a convenient dustbin was Neutra's 'reflecting pool', one of the architect's trademark terms for his double-duty architectural elements, here denoting its role both as cooling device and landscape mirror.

It is a testament to architecture's power of genius loci that thc lot, flawlessly situated at the intersection of two implausibly green fairways in the middle of scrub desert, is now striking only in its banality. A few months ago it was a horizontal stroke of white floating above the infinite plane of grass deep within the gated Tamarisk country club. Built in 1963, technological and social experiments were long behind the Modernist who counted Adolf Loos as his greatest mentor. In contrast to the 1949 Kaufmann House, a few miles away, the Maslon House didn't pose an obvious contradiction between silvery machine and desert; unlike the elegant 1947 Tremaine House in Santa Barbara, the glass pavilion wasn't 'thrillingly enhanced', to quote Neutra, by huge gnarled oak trees around it. The $2.45 million Maslon did not challenge the status quo so much as re-envision it. This was a 5000 sq ft, seven-bedroom house with beautiful appointments, Giacomettis butting up with Donald Judds, the kind of house that served g uests martinis shaken not stirred, vodka please.

For unknown reasons, Luella, who died last year, resisted placing the house on the National Register of Historic Places, or incorporating restrictions into its title. But not even the most rabid preservationists, now working to ensure more stringent review processes, anticipated that demolition was imminent. The new owner, Minneapolis-based Richard Rotenberg, has refused to give reasons for demolishing what was advertised through Sotheby's as an architectural masterpiece. Why, at least, could it have not been moved? The land was valued at about $1.3 million. That's a lot of money for a tear-down.

The abrupt loss is ironic, given that here in Southern California such houses are white-hot collectibles only celebrities can afford to pursue. Modernism has become a style rather than a series of questions written in new technologies that meant to dignify people no one ever heard of; us, the 'masses'. The mistake was to assume important examples of Modernism were no longer in danger. Rudolf Schindler's 1934 Wolfe House, a series of volumes that elegantly cascaded into the sea off Catalina Island, is another bitter local example. But when these things happen, parochial squabbles about who is the better Modernist -- here id Schindler vs. superego Neutra -- cease, at least temporarily. The global list of architects or buildings under threat includes the 1962-63 Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, designed by Saarinen protege Ralph Rapson, the 1956-63 TWA Terminal by Eero Saarinen, Gunnar Asplund grain elevators, Breuer houses, the Buffalo granaries Le Corbusier made famous in Vers une Architecture, the 1961 Cyclorama by Neutra and Alexander.

We all got out of the car and tramped around. The usual desert sunset, drop-dead trashy gorgeous, was busy streaking pink and red light onto the R-bar sticking up out of the ground, galvanized pipes, clumps of blackened Roman hearth brick -- another Neutra trademark. I heaved two big pieces of the brick into the back of the wagon. I gently pulled at the address sign, perfect Gill Sans typeface, silver against a dark brown stained wood, letters spread nicely. I tugged harder, attempting to silently apply strenuous effort while maintaining a scholarly demeanor. I failed, and wondered if I had a crowbar would my convictions about honesty prevail. 'I don't think you're the first to try', my companion said mildly, looking at me and the slightly battered sign.