John Lautner, Architect

Book excerpt: John Lautner was the quintessential Los Angeles architect. His houses, many perched on hillsides with sweeping glass walls overlooking the valley below, are icons of the drama and exuberance of the best of Southern California architecture. Born in 1911, Lautner apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright before establishing his own office in Hollywood in 1939. Among his best-known projects are the Malin Residence (Chemosphere), the Reiner Residence (Silvertop), and the Elrod Residence in Palm Springs (seen in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever). Designed with Lautner before his death in 1994, this oversized monograph is the only book available on the imaginative and exciting work of this modern master. It includes almost fifty houses, each described in detailed drawings and lavish photographs, as well as an interview in which Lautner discusses the most important influences on his work and his eccentric views on architecture. "This book celebrates the career of a neglected giant, who enriched the Southland for over fifty years.... Enthusiasts have had to wait for this sumptuous publication to discover the full range of John Lautner's achievement... He was an original striving for the unique, drawing his inspiration from the site, unbending and outspoken". -- Michael Webb, L.A. Architect "This book presents some fifty of the realized projects as well as republishing an interview that Marlene Laskey conducted with the architect in 1986, and a collection of Lautner's observations.... The spectacular location of the villas -- on rocky slopes, on the ocean, or, better still, on rocky slopes overlooking the ocean -- is invariably exploited by Lautner to the full. He developed an infalliblefeeling for using the design of his houses to emphasize the dramatic aspect of their setting. Grand gestures, prodigious cantilevers (certainly since he discovered the structural possibilities of concrete in 1963), subtle light delivery, and strategic orientation are the most striking characteristics, together with the vast dimensions and robust finish". -- Arthur Wortmann, Archis