New York Times Magazine

Now Viewing | John Lautner – Sarah Verdone –
John Lautner apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright, designed Bob Hope’s Palm Springs mansion and unwittingly spawned Googie, the futuristic style of Left Coast architecture based on a coffee shop of the same name. For more than 55 years, the architect created dwellings so site-specific they seemed to spring from the Los Angeles hills (the Sheats/Goldstein house) or touch down from a distant galaxy (the Marbrisa house or the Chemosphere house). His glass-and-poured-concrete masterpieces have co-starred in films, TV shows and even a video game. This summer, Lautner’s cult status gets an institutional imprimatur with the opening of the exhibition “Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner” at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, from July 13 to Oct. 12. (The accompanying catalog, from Rizzoli, is available for $60.) Meanwhile, make like Vincent Gallo and Kelly Lynch and buy a Lautner original at architectureforsale.com. The 1949 Schaffer residence in Glendale, Calif., is on the market for just under $2 million.
By SARAH VERDONE, N.Y. Times