John Lautner

John Lautner (born July 16, 1911 in Marquette , Michigan , † October 24, 1994 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American architect .

Career

His father, John Edward, immigrated from Germany around 1870. Lautner Jr. grew up in rural Michigan and studied English at Northern Michigan University before becoming a student of Frank Lloyd Wright on the Taliesin Project. The purpose of the Taliesin School (named after the building complex built by Wright from 1911) was to promote independent, modern American architecture . In 1940 John Lautner opened his own architectural office in Los Angeles .

Works

Right from the start he combined the highest level of functionality with an original, modern design. The most famous example is the Malin Residence, also called Chemosphere , which was built in 1960 . The building, built on a steep embankment above the San Fernando Valley , is reminiscent of an octagonal UFO , with a single concrete pillar supporting the construction, creating an illusion of floating. The Pearlman Mountain Cabin can be seen as the predecessor of the Chemosphere , a weekend house built in California in 1957, which organically fits into a steep slope and anticipates the space-age architecture of later years.

Other noteworthy buildings are the Sheats-Goldstein Residence , built in 1963 and remodeled in 1988 , which has a striking triangular roof, and the Carling House , built in 1947 , whose part of the living room, which is on a rotating platform, could be swiveled outwards and thus converted into a terrace has been. What many of his buildings have in common are unusual roof structures that often appear expansive or open at the top ( Silvertop : Reiner-Burchill Residence from 1963; Arango House , 1973). Lautner's only hotel building was the Desert Hot Springs Motel from 1947.

In addition to the numerous space-age buildings, John Lautner is also considered to be the co-founder of commercial Googie architecture. In 1949 he designed a design for Googie's Coffee Shop, the characteristics of which were the large-scale use of glass walls and elaborate billboards. The catchy, self-referential design with the materials glass, steel and neon was adopted by many restaurant chains and remained formative until the 1960s.

Lautner's works have often been used as backdrops for Hollywood films.

building	Location	Movie title	Film title (orig.)	year
Chemosphere	los Angeles	Death comes twice	Body double	1984
Chemosphere	los Angeles	3 angels for Charlie	Charlie's Angels	2000
Elrod House	Palm Springs	Diamond fever	Diamonds are forever	1971
Garcia House	los Angeles	Focus LA	Lethal Weapon 2	1989
Jacobsen House	los Angeles	In the twilight	Twilight	1998
Schaffer House	los Angeles	A single man	A single man	2009
Sheats-Goldstein Residence	los Angeles	The Big Lebowski	The Big Lebowski	1998
Sheats-Goldstein Residence	los Angeles	Bandits!	Bandits	2001
Sheats-Goldstein Residence	los Angeles	3 angels for Charlie - full power	Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle	2003
Silver top	los Angeles	Under zero	Less than zero	1987

influence

For more than 50 years, John Lautner has surprised everyone with innovative buildings, always staying true to his credo of a symbiosis of functionality and original design. Numerous awards attest to his reputation as a leading, often underestimated representative of space age architecture. The use of landscape typologies such as bridges, caves and slopes as a means of dividing space influenced subsequent architects of deconstructivism.

gallery

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  Malin Residence, Los Angeles, 1960.

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  Sail House, Malibu, 1979.

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  Sheets Apartments, Los Angeles, 1949.

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  Sheets-Goldstein Residence, Los Angeles, 1963.

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  Silvertop Residence, Los Angeles, 1960.

literature

• Julia Benjamin, Joanna Cofer, Kelly McFadden, Connor Toth, Markus Breitschmid , (Eds.): John Lautner . Architecture History Case Studies Series, Volume 9, Corporis Publisher for Architecture, Art, and Photography, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9794296-9-9 (English)
• Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange: John Lautner . Taschen, Cologne 2005, ISBN 978-3-8228-3962-1 .
• Frank Escher: John Lautner, Architect , Birkhäuser, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-7643-5863-7
• Alan Hess: John Lautner . 2nd Edition. Thames & Hudson, London 2003, ISBN 0-500-28420-2 .
• Jan-Richard Kikkert & Tyho Saariste: Lautner AZ . ArtEZ Press, Arnhem 2018, ISBN 978-94-91444-41-8 .
• Nicholas Olsberg (Ed.): Between Earth and Heaven. The Architecture of John Lautner . Rizzoli International Publications, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-8478-3014-5 .

Web links

Commons : John Lautner  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about John Lautner in the catalog of the German National Library
• The John Lautner Foundation
• The John Lautner Foundation, Picasa Public Gallery
• John Lautner. In: arch INFORM .