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- John Lautner,
FAIA, was born in
Marquette, Michigan, in 1911 and worked under Frank Lloyd
Wright at Taliesin (Wisconsin and Arizona) from 1933-39.
He worked in private practice in Los Angeles from 1946
where he boldly experimented with new industrial
processes in what he terms his "continual search to
answer total basic human needs, emotional as well as
physical, in shelter."
The 1948 apartment building L'Horizon showed the
influence of his six years at Taliesin. Visually
intriguing and functionally ingenious, his design gives
each of the nine units its own deck and outdoor garden.
The Pearlman Cabin of 1957 is a successful attempt to
integrate a modern building into a wooded site w ithout
resorting to rusticness. The sharply angled glass walls
of the house are supported by a circle of peeled log
pillars, as if the building simply grew out of the
surrounding trees. The result is refreshingly direct but
not overly intrusive.
Perhaps Lautner's best known building is the Malin House
of 1960, or simply the Chemosphere. This flying
saucer shape perched on a single concrete column may look
like futuristic indulgence, but it is also a very
sensible solution for a small steep site. The one column
foundation minimized destruction of the exisitng terrain
and obviated the usual bull-dozing and retaining walls of
hiillside building. The clear span interior of the
hexagonal house leaves 1,300 square feet of uninterrupted
living space and offers amazing views of the valley
below.
Wolff House is again characteristically bold, made of
dressed boulders, concrete and jutting glass, with the
carport projecting like a great lip. Silvertop, as
it is lovingly known, with a cantilevered driveway and
swimming pool, is a cascade of projecting forms: it was
several years in the building because of difficulties in
obtaining permits for its unorthodox structure. The use
of space is daring and inventive, but never at the
expense of the human needs central to Lautner's view of
architecture.
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