This is the Kaufmann House, which is a 1946 glass, steel and stone landmark built on the edge of Palm Springs by the architect Richard Neutra.

Today the owners , the California couple who undertook that restoration hopes Neutra’s masterpiece will play a role in a third movement: promoting architecture as a collectible art just like painting and sculpture. The house was designed as a desert retreat from harsh winters.

The structure is built as a series of horizontal planes, which are floating over glass walls and seems to absorb the mood of the surrounding desert.

The house will be sold at auction. Such auctions are bringing a new level of scrutiny to a form that, little more than a decade ago, attracted so little notice.

The Kaufmann House is one of the best-known designs by Neutra, a Viennese-born architect who moved to the United States in the 1920s and designed homes for the next few decades for many wealthy West Coast clients.