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From Googie to great: uncovering truth and beauty in John Lautner's architecture

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From Googie to great: uncovering truth and beauty in John Lautner's architecture

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Content FROM GOOGIE TO GREAT: UNCOVERING TRUTH AND BEAUTY IN JOHN LAUTNER’S ARCHITECTURE by Hilary Jordan Scurlock A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM—THE ARTS) May 2010 Copyright 2010 Hilary Jordan Scurlock Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Figures iii Abstract iv The Missing Link 1 The Price for Lautner 3 Designing Los Angeles 11 Testing Nature’s Limits 15 Lautner’s Driving Motivation 20 Getting His Due 24 Bibliography 28 ii Acknowledgements I am incredibly grateful to Tim Page for his endless patience in reading draft upon draft of this work, and his unrelenting support of an unproven writer like myself. I would also like to thank Sasha Anawalt for helping me to think outside the box and encouraging my exploration of a new field. Lastly, I am especially indebted to Victor Regnier for showing me the truly great houses of Los Angeles. To my trusted advisors—thank you. iii List of Figures Figure 1: The Schaffer Residence, Glendale, CA (1949). 5 Figure 2: The Sheats-Goldstein Residence, Beverly Hills, CA (1963/1989). 9 Figure 3: Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, CA (1960). 13 Figure 4: Schaffer Residence (interior), Glendale, CA (1949). 17 Figure 5: Malin Residence (Chemosphere), Hollywood, CA (1960). 19 Figure 6: Original Googie’s Coffee Shop, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, CA (1949). 22 iv Abstract After he designed the Jetsons-esque Googie’s coffee shop, architect John Lautner (1911–1994) was panned for creating a laughable caricature of modern design. Stick to residential, the critics implored, and for the most part, Lautner did: in a career that spanned a half-century, he designed nearly 200 homes, primarily in Los Angeles. As a residential architect, he excelled: his houses speak to the elemental nature of the living space, while also incorporating cutting-edge design. His innovative ideas fundamentally changed the way we think about housing, and his incorporation of technology and transportation in his designs (both residential and commercial) helped define Los Angeles’ modern image. Despite his imprint on the city, Lautner was rarely lauded for his design genius, and himself became disillusioned with the politics of the architectural world. As a result, few know the architectural legacy of a man who learned from Frank Lloyd Wright and influenced Frank Gehry, and in some ways surpassed them. But now, after increasing popularity on the real estate market and the exhibition of his first major career retrospective, people are starting to see the truth and beauty in Lautner’s work. 1 The Missing Link Frank Gehry, the starchitect behind Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall, was largely influenced by a notable 20 th century architect and his work in California. “I used to travel and go look at everything he did, and bother the owners, like they do to me now,” Gehry recalls. 1 He was fascinated by this architect’s innovative sensibility in designing houses, through his integration of nature, manipulation of space, and site- specific creativity. If you are thinking Frank Lloyd Wright, you’re wrong. Gehry is not referring to Wright, but to one of his students, John Lautner (1911 – 1994), who employed many Wrightian principles to design buildings that reflected the changing dynamics of a young Los Angeles in the mid 20 th century. In fact, he was significantly more prolific than Wright in Southern California: in a career that spanned a half-century, he designed nearly 200 homes and commercial properties, primarily in Los Angeles. 2 Interestingly, despite his imprint on the city, few know of this man who connects Wright with Gehry—the two most recognizable names in American architecture—and even fewer appreciate his work. Despite his creativity in design and thoughtful integration of landscape, Lautner’s out-of-the box style was not well-received for much of his career. He was more unconventional than Wright, and also fell outside of the minimalist design of his “high” Modernist contemporaries, so his work was viewed as undisciplined and arbitrary. “High Modernism is so determined by geometry and strict thinking of the function that 1 Infinite Space. Dir. Murray Grigor. 2009. 2 Campbell-Lange, Barbara Ann. Lautner. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2005. 2 determines how you lay out the rooms,” explains Wim de Wit, Head of the Getty’s Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art, noting that much of modern architecture is just “wrapping a skin” around a minimal structure. 3 Because Lautner was more sculptural with his geometry and considered more organic forms, many could not understand his method. “His work was always so much on the edge, so far out of the mainstream, that a lot of people…just didn’t get it,” explained Alan Hess, architect, critic, and author of The Architecture of John Lautner, “They just assumed he was a very undisciplined architect who just kind of did whatever came into his mind.” 4 Lautner was accused of being undisciplined, but he attested to a meticulous approach to perfection. Of one of his later projects, Marbrisa (1973), a sweeping wave of concrete largely open to the ocean in Acapulco, Lautner claimed that it took him 35 years and an entire career to reach that level of “precision,” where the structure totally frames the landscape, and vice versa. 5 After his death, Lautner’s work had been all but forgotten, until UCLA’s Hammer Museum opened the first major retrospective of his work, “Between Earth and Heaven,” in 2008. The exhibition showed that his approach was in fact quite disciplined, and his unique designs are perhaps worth another look. Upon studying Lautner’s body of work today, it is now clear that, in the story of American architecture, John Lautner is the missing link. 3 de Wit, Wim. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 9 February 2010. 4 Hess, Alan. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 12 February 2010. 5 Infinite Space. 3 The Price for Lautner One area where Lautner has gained posthumous popularity is on the real estate market. His aesthetic, previously criticized as undisciplined, is now heralded as inventive and sculptural. In the fifteen years after his death, his houses have become coveted collectibles; his later works especially, with their infinity pools, open decks, and floor-to- ceiling views, are exemplars of modern Hollywood life. Recently, a cult group of A-list homeowners have been snapping up Lautner homes. In 2007, actors Courtney Cox and David Arquette sold their Lautner home, the oceanfront Segel residence (1979) in Malibu, for $27 million to L.A. Dodgers owners Frank and Jamie McCourt. 6 (The house may change hands again depending on the results of the McCourts’ highly publicized divorce proceedings.) The Harvey residence (1949) in Hollywood is currently owned by actress Kelly Lynch and producer Mitch Glazer, and Dreamworks animation executive Bill Damashke and his partner John McIlwee call the Garcia house on Mulhulland Drive home. 7,8 Want to join the celebrity homeowners? Lautner’s famed Palm Springs design, the Elrod house (1968), is on the market for $13.9 million, or you can rent the 1950 Carling house, Lautner’s proto-bachelor pad in Hollywood, for $10,000 a month (both as of March 2010). 9,10 6 Chang, Kate. "The Radar Design." Angeleno July 2008: 62-64, 128. 7 Infinite Space. 8 Smith, Dakota. ""Sweet: John Lautner's Garcia House Getting a Pool"." 27 March 2009. Curbed L.A. 25 March 2010 <http://la.curbed.com/archives/2009/03/john_lautners_garcia_house_getting_a_pool.php>. 9 RedFin. 10 February 2010. 26 March 2010 <http://www.redfin.com/CA/Palm-Springs/2175-Southridge-Dr- 92264/home/5700285>. 4 Another of his early projects—the Schaffer residence in Glendale (Figure 1)— is also on the market, though it hasn’t generated as much buzz, despite its high regard among Lautnerites. “The Schaffer house is the one building of his that intrigued me the most,” explained Gehry in Murray Grigor’s 2009 Lautner documentary Infinite Space, a film created in parallel with “Between Earth and Heaven.” 11 Lautner’s 1949 Schaffer residence, a 2 bedroom ranch house in Glendale, is one of his first commissions, and Frank Escher, architect and curator of “Between Earth and Heaven,” stated in a recent lecture that the Schaffer residence was Lautner’s “first real masterpiece.” 12 In fact, like Gehry and Escher, many Lautner aficionados agree the Schaffer residence is an early example of his brilliance and originality. Alan Hess enjoys Lautner’s use of the site’s oak grove: “He makes a big point of saving the oaks, building the house around the oaks, but also of giving you the sense when you are in the house that you are outside underneath the trees.” 13 The home’s original clients, the Schaffers, would picnic beneath the oaks on the property before the house was built, and Lautner wanted to mimic that experience in his design, something that others today appreciate as well. 14 “I love the seamless transition from indoor to outdoor, the flow through the space, 10 Gluck, Marissa. "John Lautner's Carling House Available for Rent." 22 January 2010. Curbed L.A. 24 March 2010 <http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/01/john_lautners_carling_house_available_for_lease.php>. 11 Infinite Space. 12 Escher, Frank. Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner (lecture). Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA. 19 February 2010. 13 Hess (interview). 14 Campbell-Lange 35. 5 the lightness of the building,” said Lautner’s daughter, Judith, who once worked in her father’s office, “It is like living in the trees, yet having all of the simple comforts that make a home.” 15 Unfortunately, though the virtues of the home are obvious to experts and neophytes alike, the house has languished on the market for more than two years, and the price has dropped nearly 25% from its original listing at $1.95 million (February 2008) down to $1.5 million (as of October 2009). 16 $1.5 million is a steal for a high-end home in Los Angeles, much less one with a prominent architect to its name—so why hasn’t it 15 Lautner, Judith. Email Exchange re: Schaffer Residence Hilary Scurlock. 3 February 2010. 16 RedFin. 19 March 2010. 25 March 2010 <http://www.redfin.com/CA/Glendale/527-Whiting-Woods-Rd- 91208/home/7145398>. Figure 1: The Schaffer Residence, Glendale, CA (1949). Photo: Tycho Saariste (picasaweb.com) 6 been snapped up? It is particularly peculiar given the waxing popularity of Lautner’s homes among the Hollywood industry set. Naturally, part of the reason is the housing market crash during the 2008 recession, but the lack of interest might also be due to the fact that the Schaffer residence is not the known Lautner “style” popular on the market—the more sprawling, over-the- top properties from later in his career. This lovely middle class house is tucked in the woods of Glendale; much different from the westward perch of the Hollywood Hills or the refreshing Malibu seaside. Furthermore, the Schaffer residence represents the first stages of his career, not the later concrete masterpieces for which Lautner later made his name. Lautner’s use of materials evolved over time, and the Schaffer residence is an example of his early work with redwood and glass. 17 To the untrained eye, such a simply framed wood structure can seem modest or even poorly constructed. However, the house’s “lightness” is its virtue, a structure that is simultaneously complex yet primally open. It is in wonderful condition, so the home remains largely unchanged from its original construction. Nevertheless, most buyers do not see retro, they see old. But to some, the house’s vintage appeal works to its advantage. The Schaffer residence recently starred in the 2009 Tom Ford film, A Single Man, for which actor Colin Firth earned an Oscar nomination. 18 Firth’s character calls the Schaffer residence home, a building well-suited to the tastes of a gay bachelor in the early 1960’s. That the home has many of its original features also suits the retro time period of the film. 17 Campbell-Lange 35. 18 The film is based on the Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name, a semi-autobiographical account of Isherwood’s trials as a gay man in early 60’s Los Angeles. 7 Ironically, through a little movie magic, the home appears not to be set in the Glendale foothills, but rather near the beaches of Santa Monica; perhaps indicative of Glendale’s lack of appeal, even 50 years ago. 19 It is not at all a stretch that fashion designer-turned- director Tom Ford would choose Lautner’s house; Ford is a huge mid-century architecture fan, and himself lives in a home designed by Richard Neutra, one of Lautner’s contemporaries. 20 But the tastes of most modern homeowners do not necessarily mirror that of a mid-century gay bachelor, and it is clear that the lack of interest in the property is partly due to the home’s overwhelmingly vintage kitsch. It is difficult to maintain all of the details of a historic home because “you have homeowners who want to put their stamp on a property,” says Sarah Farris-Gilbert, residential chair of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s modern Committee “and at the same time you don’t want to be living in a museum.” 21 Wim de Wit agrees, noting that these houses work best as homes despite their historical importance. “I do not think there are many houses made into house museums that are successful,” says de Wit, calling such instances as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Barnsdall House “dead and depressing.” 22 A surprising statement, given that Wright’s Barnsdall House in Hollywood, also known as the Hollyhock House, is one of L.A.’s more popular public architectural landmarks. 23 de Wit realizes that most architecture 19 A Single Man. Dir. Tom Ford. 2009. 20 Brown, Mick. "Tom Ford: Immaculate Conception." 18 January 2010. Telegraph. 26 March 2010 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/7020492/Tom-Ford-Immaculate-Conception.html>. 21 Farris-Gilbert, Sarah. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 3 February 2010. 22 de Wit. 23 Hollyhock House by Frank Lloyd Wright. 2003-2008. 26 March 2010 <http://www.hollyhockhouse.net/index.htm>. 8 historians do not share his sentiment, favoring that the houses remain exactly how they would have been when first conceived. “I would definitely make sure the architectural character is preserved,” explains de Wit, putting himself in the homeowner’s shoes, “but I would not care for the bathroom or the kitchen being exactly the way it was. I don’t even think that [the architect] would have understood that…The house also has to be comfortable.” 24 This type of flexibility can be dangerous, if owners make too many changes to suit their interests and ideals of comfort. In some instances, owners have destroyed Lautner’s designs, assuming that the fluidity of his space and simultaneous strength of structure would support additions and renovations. For example, previous owners of Lautner’s 1956 Harpel house in the Hollywood Hills added a second story addition that totally contradicted the horizontal indoor-outdoor flow of the house. 25 Current owner Mark Haddawy, a known architecture collector in L.A., immediately sought to return the home to its original design and, though he only had a few photographs of the original to work with, noted that about 70% of renovation of the house was demolition. 26 With the Sheats-Goldstein residence (Figure 2), a futuristic origami of concrete and glass in Beverly Hills, Jim Goldstein bought the house in the early 1970s and began working with Lautner in 1989 to restore the house to its original condition designed for the Sheats family in 1963. 27 “That I can understand,” says de Wit, about the Sheats- 24 de Wit. 25 Young, Paul. "Lautner, Lost and Found." The Los Angeles Times 10 April 2008. 26 Infinite Space. 27 Hess, Alan and Alan Weintraub. The Architecture of John Lautner. New York: Rizzoli, 1999. 9 Goldstein house, “he has the money and he can work with Lautner to make it more perfect than when it was first built.” 28 For almost 15 years, Goldstein worked on updating the house with Lautner and his associates, including Duncan Nicholson, the project architect on the Sheats-Goldstein house. 29 According to Nicholson, most of the ideas for renovation have come from the owner’s end, but luckily Goldstein has kept the integrity of Lautner’s designs in mind. 30 For example, Goldstein has replaced the frameless glass windows in the living room several times as glass technology has improved, to help perfect the view Lautner was trying to achieve. 31 28 de Wit. 29 Nicholson, Duncan. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 10 March 2010. 30 Nicholson. 31 Goldstein, James. Group Tour of Sheats-Goldstein House. Beverly Hills, CA, 31 October 2009. Figure 2: The Sheats-Goldstein Residence, Beverly Hills, CA (1963/1989). Photo: Hilary Scurlock 10 Goldstein has done so much work on the house that according to him, there is rarely a day when the home is not under construction. 32 “One has to give credit to Jim Goldstein for the fact that, for many years, he supported Lautner’s office,” recounted Frank Escher in Infinite Space. 33 Even now, after Lautner’s death in 1994, Goldstein has worked with Nicholson to expand the compound: installing an on-site contemporary art piece (one of James Turrell’s Skyspaces) as well as a guest house annex complete with private nightclub “akin to a super-luxury living room,” according to Nicholson. 34,35 Lautner revisited the Sheats-Goldstein house only a few times after it was originally built, but Nicholson recalls the first time he was on-site to review renovations with Goldstein: “I remember walking into the Sheats-Goldstein with John and he stood in the living room, and he’s looking out towards the pool…just checking everything out, and he says ‘It’s better than I’d even remembered.’” 36 Nicholson was amazed that the architect himself was able to be blown away by his own design, even after several decades. Lautner’s houses, renovated or not, are timeless icons in the Los Angeles landscape, historical edifices that are still quite fresh. 32 Goldstein, James. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 4 November 2009. 33 Infinite Space. 34 Nicholson. 35 Goldstein, Group Tour of Sheats-Goldstein House. 36 Nicholson. 11 Designing Los Angeles In New York and Chicago, the mark of a brilliant modern architect has historically been the skyscraper, as feats of engineering innovation drove buildings higher and higher. Yet Los Angeles grew up as a suburban metropolis, “a city composed of backyards,” known more for its houses than its highrises. 37 Los Angeles is a 20 th century city, and much of its development occured after the Second World War. 38 During this time, the car was solidified as the dominant form of transportation throughout the city, and new middle-class suburban homeseekers demanded a new type of housing to accommodate the modern family. An entire generation of architects, many formerly students of Frank Lloyd Wright, descended on Los Angeles and let lose a creativity in their designs that not only rejected the high-rise, but fundamentally shaped the city’s new culture through the new Southern California home: an architectural style known today as Mid-Century Modernism (MCM, for short). Characterized by streamlined steel and glass structures and minimalist interior design, the Mid-Century Modern has been as influential as the Spanish Colonial, if not more so, in defining residential L.A. These modern architects, starting with Wright, were inspired by Los Angeles and its opportunities for freedom and creativity in design. After Wright, a new crop of architects including Rudolph Schindler (1887-1953), Richard Neutra (1892-1970), and Pierre Koenig(1925-2004), championed a modern architecture unlike the Spanish 37 Knight, Christopher. "Big 'Burb." Design Quarterly (Autumn 1994): 2-16. 38 Knight. 12 colonial mansions and arts and crafts bungalows that primarily populated the city in the early 20 th century. The dominating modernist designs created by these architects were exemplified in the Case Study Movement in the mid-20 th century. The Case Study House program was introduced by Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned 18 architects to design 30 homes between 1945 and 1965. 39 The architects were challenged to design “attractive and affordable living” for returning WWII vets and their families that reflected the latest technology and trends in home design. 40 The houses, most notably the iconic Case Study House #22 designed by Pierre Koenig, are “emblematic of American architecture in that halcyon age between the end of World War II and the Kennedy Assassination.” 41 Perhaps as iconic as Case Study House #22 itself is the photograph of the house taken by renowned architecture photographer Julius Shulman in 1960 (Figure 3). The photo, which architecture critic Paul Goldberger cites among architecture photographs as “the most recognizable image of the second half of the twentieth century,” depicts two well-dressed women sitting and socializing in the house’s glass cube of a living room set atop the Hollywood Hills, magically cantilevered over what seems like all of Los Angeles below. 42 This one image captures the modernist sensibility with which Los Angeles has been and continues to be fascinated, of technology married with drama and elegance. 39 "The Case Study House Program." Arts & Architecture. 25 March 2010 <http://www.artsandarchitecture.com/case.houses/>. 40 Unknown, Author. "Pierre K and the CSH Program." Course Materials for Architecture 444: Great Houses of Los Angeles (USC Fall 2009). 2009. 41 Steele, James and D. Jenkins. Pierre Koenig. London: Phaidon, 1998. 42 Goldberger, Paul. Why Architecture Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. 13 Like this remarkably dramatic yet minimalist L-shaped abode of glass and steel, all of the houses in the program were inspired by wartime technology and conform to a certain aesthetic that characterize most of Southern California’s modern houses. “The mainstream of modernism in the 20 th century was completely fascinated by the machine,” according to architect and historian Alan Hess, “They created steel and glass houses, and imagery was of factories and of clean machine lines.” 43 Lautner himself eschewed any comparison with the style of Modernism, considering it a fad. Of the flashy, futuristic styles of modernism and post-modernism 43 Hess (interview). Figure 3: Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, CA (1960). Photo: Julius Shulman 14 that the media uses when speaking of architecture, Lautner once said that “it’s all superficial fad stuff and it’s not contributing to human life. It’s merchandise.” 44 To him, much of Modernist design was not grounded in the essential human needs for housing; a lot of design at the time was simply bells and whistles, based on technology rather than humanistic reactions to space. 44 Infinite Space. 15 Testing Nature’s Limits As a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, Lautner spent six years under his tutelage at his two Taliesin compounds in Wisconsin and Arizona. 45 However, Lautner was basically a draftsman under Wright, and did little of his own designing. 46 He later said that, during his time with Wright, he was simply absorbing as many ideas as he could. 47 In 1938, Lautner began designing on his own, and while his Wrightian influences are apparent in his early work, the original ideas began to pour out of him. Unlike his machine-driven contemporaries in the postwar period, Lautner’s inspiration was markedly different: nature. He grew up in a lakeside cabin in Michigan, and experienced both the rural and desert beauty at Taliesin and later Taliesin West, respectively. “It was the primeval habitations of humans—forests, caves, meadows— which really shaped Lautner’s spaces and designs,” explained Hess, noting that his houses have “the sheltering intimacy of a cave, or a light-filled openness of a meadow, or the dappled light coming into a forest and the strength of the trunks of the trees around you.” 48 This unconventional design approach allowed Lautner to blur distinctions between the natural and the man-made, a key principle of his work. Even in his earliest work, Lautner tried to play with space and shapes to maximize the beauty and utility of 45 Campbell-Lange 9. 46 It was standard for most of Wright’s apprentices to be treated as draftsmen. Regnier, Victor. E-mail Correspondence and Comments re: John Lautner Hilary Scurlock. March 2010. 47 Hess (interview). 48 Hess (interview). 16 the natural environment, often using techniques to bring the outdoors into his houses, such as bringing in plant materials or water elements that originate outdoors. Wright experimented with bringing natural elements indoors, though he eventually lost interest in this experiment. On the other hand, it became Lautner’s obsession, thus his trademark. 49 Indeed, once Lautner began designing on his own, he tested the limits of Wright’s principles. Even in early work like the Schaffer residence, Lautner was able to integrate the natural setting of Southern California that Wright was never able to fully grasp in his Los Angeles houses. “The Schaffer house was more L.A., playing with the landscape,” explained Gehry, “Frank Lloyd Wright wouldn’t have done something like that.” 50 Especially in his attempts to connect design and nature, Lautner dared to throw convention out the window—almost literally. In the Schaffer residence, Lautner deconstructed the traditional window by splicing glass into the wall panels, what Hess calls “one of Lautner’s greatest inventions to really completely blur the line” between indoor and outdoor space (Figure 4). By creating confusion between a solid barrier and an open portal to the outdoors, “It was much more effective than simply putting up a big glass wall,” Hess continues, “which a lot of other modern architects did, and very effectively.” 51 Lautner himself once explained that “The slots of glass in that redwood wall make it seem more open than solid glass when you are inside.” 52 He liked to play 49 Regnier. 50 Infinite Space. 51 Hess (interview). 52 Infinite Space. 17 mind tricks like this, always making people conscious of their limits between privacy and openness. Wim de Wit agrees that, in some cases, Lautner paid attention to details that Wright would have overlooked. de Wit explains that most architects devote all of their attention to the living quarters, and that the bedrooms are often obligatory additions to the design. In a few notable examples of Lautner’s designs, including the Wolff residence and the Sheats-Goldstein residence, “he really was trying to place [the house] in a way Figure 4: Schaffer Residence (interior), Glendale, CA (1949). Photo: Hilary Scurlock 18 that also the views from the bedroom were very good,” reasons de Wit, “and that’s something Frank Lloyd Wright probably would not have done, because Frank Lloyd Wright’s bedrooms were always afterthoughts.” 53 Lautner’s design decisions seem so thoughtful because, in every instance, he designed homes from the inside, as they would be inhabited. “I have designed from within all my life,” Lautner once explained, “Within is the real essential of architecture because the essential use of architecture is for people.” 54 He did not pay attention to facades, how homes appeared from the outside, but rather focused on what he called “real architecture:” optimizing the architectural space to create a sense of light and freedom from within. 55 Because each design dealt directly with the site on which each house was located, Lautner essentially started from scratch with each design, studiously examining the topography and landscape to determine how to seamlessly fit the design into the natural space. As his career progressed, Lautner received larger commissions, and he also began to play with technological advances in building materials, namely concrete. Using a reinforced concrete that allowed him to cast virtually any shape, Lautner’s later work became more structurally grounded yet sculpturally free. During this time period (beginning in 1960), Lautner is perhaps best known for the Malin residence, also known as the Chemospere, a flying-saucer-like structure off of Mulholland Drive (Figure 5). 56 53 de Wit. 54 Infinite Space. 55 Regnier, Victor. Lecture: Great Houses of Los Angeles--Lautner and Eames. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. 29 October 2009. 56 Campbell-Lange 45. 19 In this property, he employed a single concrete pillar to prop up the living space of the house, so as to better take advantage of the problematic site, yet marvelous view. From every room, there is a view of L.A. that reaches from the mountains to the ocean. He also used concrete in more fluid ways in other houses, attempting to make the concrete itself seem as an organic form. These sensational futuristic homes with sweeping concrete curves, such as Acapulco’s Marbrisa, the Elrod residence, and the Garcia residence (1962), are most popular among celebrities and have been featured in movies such as Diamonds are Forever (1971) and Lethal Weapon 2 (1989). 57 57 "Movies Featuring Lautner Buildings." 2010. The John Lautner Foundation. 25 March 2010 <http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=32>. Photo: Julius Shulman (Taschen) Figure 5: Malin Residence (Chemosphere), Hollywood, CA (1960). 20 Lautner’s Driving Motivation Despite Lautner’s brilliance in home design, he certainly did not want to be known strictly as a residential architect. “Because he was an architect, and not a house architect, he saw—and this goes back to his training with Frank Lloyd Wright—every house as the part of the larger city,” explains Hess, “he wanted to express his ideas about the entire city.” 58 Lautner worked on Wright’s Broadacre City project, a hypothetical plan for a self-sufficient suburban community that Wright introduced in the mid-1930’s, which likely influenced Lautner’s urban-oriented point of view. 59 The Schaffer house has had trouble generating interest today, but at the time it was built, it established Lautner’s distinctive take on the postwar ranch house, complete with prominent carport, a design perfectly suited to the suburban enclaves and shiny new freeways that coursed through Los Angeles in the 1940’s. His houses were meant as pieces in the larger puzzle he was trying to solve to suit this changing “suburban metropolis” of Los Angeles. For Lautner, each of the houses connected to the city, and the way they were connected was the automobile. In many of his homes, the entrance to the house is via the carport, rather than a traditional front door, and the carport often made up a significant portion of the front “façade.” Additionally, Lautner made a significant contribution to roadside architecture in Southern California, designing coffee shops, drive-ins, car dealerships, and motels, all of 58 Hess (interview). 59 Hess 11. 21 which were unique for their orientation to the automobile as well. Lautner’s first commercial design, a series of Henry’s Coffee Shops (beginning in 1947), included a roof highly visible from the road, carhop service, and concrete planters to separate the customers from the cars (while the vehicles were still in sight). 60 Examples of Lautner’s commercial work still exist, including the Beachwood Market (1954), whose dramatically upsloped roof reveals views of the Hollywood sign from its location on Belden Drive in Hollywood. 61 His experiment with roadside architecture culminated in perhaps his most notorious commercial venture: the Googie’s coffee shop he designed in 1949, the same year the Schaffer residence was built. Googie’s was located at Sunset and Crescent Heights Boulevard, right on the Sunset Strip (Figure 6). 62 It had everything Lautner included in the Henry’s series, but with the volume turned up, meant to “bring the passing motorist to a screeching halt,” once explained architecture historian David Gebhard. 63 Yet despite Lautner’s understanding of how the automobile shaped the community beyond housing, and the niche popularity of his commercial work, it was never truly taken seriously, seen as a caricature of modernism. Lautner was dogged throughout his career by the early criticism of his commercial buildings, and from then on failed to attract major commercial commissions. To this day, somewhat unfairly, the 60 Hess 44. 61 Infinite Space. 62 Langdon, Philip. Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American Chain Restaurants. New York: Knopf, 1986. 63 Hess 14. 22 term “Googie architecture” widely refers to a style of cheap, roadside novelty architecture. 64 Despite his brilliance in residential designs, Lautner did express regret in not having more commercial work. “He would have liked [to have big commissions],” according to de Wit, “but he became in the end a residential architect and once you are named with that status, it is very hard to get out of that.” 65 With his commercial projects, he did not receive the critical acclaim he deserved and often ran into creative and political 64 Hess (interview). 65 de Wit. Figure 6: Original Googie’s Coffee Shop, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, CA (1949). Photo: Hess and Weintraub, The Architecture of John Lautner 23 roadblocks, a source of resentment late in his career. “I would like to have done some museums and civic centers and so forth,” Lautner once lamented, “but there are all political, tricky, status things involved, so I don’t have a chance.” 66 Karol Lautner Peterson, John Lautner’s daughter, has repeatedly said that her father hated Los Angeles, and even he once noted “When I first drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, it was so ugly I was physically sick for the the first year I was here.” 67 Similarly, several sources have remarked on Lautner’s ambivalence to L.A., and that this reputation he gained often scared off potential clients. However, Lautner’s “hatred” for L.A. was really a frustration that the city did not embrace his ideas, especially later in his career. On the contrary, Lautner was quite inspired by L.A., he just ran into bureaucratic obstacles that disillusioned him. “There was a lot about commercial architecture, the bankers, the financing, city building department, that he was frustrated with because they were so conventional, and he was not,” explains Hess. 68 Though he hated the bureaucracy and terrible architecture that resulted, Hess points out that “he had a real understanding and sympathy for the Southern California way of life: the hills, the ocean, the car.” 69 In fact, he did not hate the city. Lautner embraced Los Angeles; it is the city that has not appreciated him. 66 Infinite Space. 67 Hess 11. 68 Hess (interview). 69 Hess (interview). 24 Getting His Due Nevertheless, Lautner was not stingy with self-recognition, perhaps necessary to offset the often unfair criticism from the “tastemakers.” He knew he was great, even if others did not recognize him as such. “I just think there wasn’t anybody as talented as him around, and he knew it,” according to Duncan Nicholson, the last associate hired in Lautner’s office, “and there were very few architects that he liked.” Emulating the disposition of his mentor Wright, Lautner recognized his own talent, but did not think much of his contemporaries or younger architects coming up, including Gehry. While Gehry clearly admires Lautner, Lautner was quick to distance himself from Gehry, and would occasionally crack jokes or draw cartoons about the crumpled-tissue facades of Gehry’s buildings. “[John’s] often said ‘I’ve never designed a façade in my life,’ but Gehry’s are all façade and you go inside and it’s a completely different structure,” Nicholson recalled, “he didn’t think that was architecture at all.” 70 The distinction may be true, but it is hard not to detect a slight twinge of jealousy on Lautner’s part. In many ways, his work is still not compared on the same level as his mentor Wright and his devotee Gehry. Though the opportunity to design large-scale civic projects evaded Lautner throughout his career, both Wright and Gehry have designed Guggenheim museums, in New York (1959) and Bilbao (1997) respectively; buildings which have cemented their legacy worldwide. While Bilbao was completed 70 Nicholson. 25 after Lautner’s death, he most likely would have known about its commission. (Gehry is currently working on a new Guggenheim for Dubai as well.) Furthermore, Lautner has not been privy to the formal recognition and awards that have been bestowed upon his mentor Wright and his devotee Gehry. Both Wright (in 1949) and Gehry (1999) were awarded Gold Medals from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). 71 And though the Pritzker Prize, known as the “Nobel prize of architecture” and the highest award for living architects, was not established until 1979, twenty years after Wright’s death, it was awarded to Frank Gehry in 1989. 72 One reason that Lautner has not been given such formal recognition is that, for a good part of his career, he was not even recognized as an architect. He did not enjoy the particularities and neatness necessary for drafting, and never received any academic architectural training (he actually holds a degree in English from Northern Michigan University). 73 He opted instead to apprentice with Wright because “in the academic world, in architecture school, I would just be graded for neat[ness].” 74 As Lautner never earned an architecture degree, the AIA withheld the title of “architect,” referring to him as “John Lautner, Designer.” 7576 The AIA did finally recognize him as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects for Excellence in Design in 1970, but still the title 71 "Gold Medal Award Recipients." 2010. The American Institute of Architects. 26 March 2010 <http://www.aia.org/practicing/awards/AIAB025046>. 72 The Pritzker Architecture Prize. 2010. 26 March 2010 <http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/year.html>. 73 "Biography of John Lautner." 2010. The John Lautner Foundation. 26 March 2010 <http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=33>. 74 Infinite Space. 75 “Biography of John Lautner.” 76 Speicher, Betsy. John Lautner, Architect. 14 October 1994. 26 March 2010 <http://speicher.com/lautnerb.htm>. 26 implies a sort of honorary degree as an excellent designer, rather than truly as an architect. 77 Regardless, young architecture students like Gehry looked up to Lautner as the bad boy of architecture—his daring ideas were direct challenges to academic architecture, unlike anything they had seen in studio. Lautner often spoke to groups of students later in his career, but because his ideas about structure and nature were so unique, his work has not been able to influence the education of architecture as it should. “That kind of work is so hard to do and it’s so misunderstood, and it’s not easily taught,” reasoned Nicholson, “You can’t teach somebody to be an artist.” 78 For now, Lautner’s work has at least found inspiration as art. As part of Modernism Week 2010, the Palm Springs Art Museum opened a rerun of the 2008 Hammer exhibition devoted to Lautner’s work, “Between Earth and Heaven” (on view until May). Though the Hammer exhibition was popular among architecture aficionados, it seems to have found a home in Palm Springs. Lautner designed three landmark properties in the desert resort town—the Desert Hot Springs Motel (1947), the Elrod House (1968), and the Bob Hope house (1980)— and unlike Los Angeles’ love- hate relationship with Lautner, Palm Springs has largely embraced the architect’s contributions from their inception. 79 Concurrently in the spring of 2010, the Hammer features a second exhibition related to Lautner’s work, this time photographed by an Italian artist. In “Being There,” 77 “Biography of John Lautner.” 78 Nicholson. 79 Campbell-Lange. 27 the museum exhibits photographs taken by Luisa Lambri inside Los Angeles homes, the majority of which she took in Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein residence. 80 Unlike Julius Shulman’s technique of photographing the architectural forms, Lambri’s work focuses on the experience of being in a space, and in a sense, she is doing Lautner’s house more of a justice by documenting the sense of being within it. In addition to these current exhibitions, the Getty is planning a large exhibition slated for 2014 on California architecture between 1940 and 1990, in which de Wit anticipates Lautner will play a large role. 81 Architect or artist, Lautner fundamentally changed the way we think about the spaces in which we live, and how residential spaces operate in a larger city context, especially Los Angeles. But his principles can apply beyond a Southern California way of life, to how every person thinks about optimizing living spaces to incorporate the primacy of nature, freedom of movement, and technology as art. “One of the main ideas,” Lautner once explained of his work, “is to improve human life by creating truth and beauty and infinite space.” 82 He may not be an “architect,” but the man who learned from Wright and influenced Gehry deserves his place among the great. 80 Mizota, Sharon. "Modernist Houses--Through a Unique Lens." 27 February 2010. L.A. Times-Culture Monster Blog. 26 March 2010 <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/02/modernist-housesthrough-a-unique- lens.html>. 81 de Wit. 82 Infinite Space. 28 Bibliography A Single Man. Dir. Tom Ford. 2009. "Biography of John Lautner." 2010. The John Lautner Foundation. 26 March 2010 <http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=33>. Brown, Mick. "Tom Ford: Immaculate Conception." 18 January 2010. Telegraph. 26 March 2010 <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/7020492/Tom-Ford- Immaculate-Conception.html>. Campbell-Lange, Barbara Ann. Lautner. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2005. Chang, Kate. "The Radar Design." Angeleno July 2008: 62-64, 128. de Wit, Wim. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 9 February 2010. Escher, Frank. Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner (lecture). Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA. 19 February 2010. Farris-Gilbert, Sarah. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 3 February 2010. Gluck, Marissa. "John Lautner's Carling House Available for Rent." 22 January 2010. Curbed L.A. 24 March 2010 <http://la.curbed.com/archives/2010/01/john_lautners_carling_house_available_f or_lease.php>. "Gold Medal Award Recipients." 2010. The American Institute of Architects. 26 March 2010 <http://www.aia.org/practicing/awards/AIAB025046>. Goldberger, Paul. Why Architecture Matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Goldstein, James. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 4 November 2009. —. "Group Tour of Sheats-Goldstein House." Beverly Hills, CA, 31 October 2009. Hess, Alan. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 12 February 2010. Hess, Alan and Alan Weintraub. The Architecture of John Lautner. New York: Rizzoli, 1999. Hollyhock House by Frank Lloyd Wright. 2003-2008. 26 March 2010 <http://www.hollyhockhouse.net/index.htm>. 29 Infinite Space. Dir. Murray Grigor. 2009. Knight, Christopher. "Big 'Burb." Design Quarterly (Autumn 1994): 2-16. Langdon, Philip. Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American Chain Restaurants. New York: Knopf, 1986. Lautner, Judith. Email Exchange re: Schaffer Residence Hilary Scurlock. 3 February 2010. Mizota, Sharon. "Modernist Houses--Through a Unique Lens." 27 February 2010. L.A. Times-Culture Monster Blog. 26 March 2010 <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/02/modernist- housesthrough-a-unique-lens.html>. "Movies Featuring Lautner Buildings." 2010. The John Lautner Foundation. 25 March 2010 <http://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=32>. Nicholson, Duncan. Interview. Hilary Scurlock. 10 March 2010. RedFin. 10 February 2010. 26 March 2010 <http://www.redfin.com/CA/Palm- Springs/2175-Southridge-Dr-92264/home/5700285>. RedFin. 19 March 2010. 25 March 2010 <http://www.redfin.com/CA/Glendale/527- Whiting-Woods-Rd-91208/home/7145398>. Regnier, Victor. E-mail Correspondence and Comments re: John Lautner Hilary Scurlock. March 2010. —. Lecture: Great Houses of Los Angeles--Lautner and Eames. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. 29 October 2009. Smith, Dakota. ""Sweet: John Lautner's Garcia House Getting a Pool"." 27 March 2009. Curbed L.A. 25 March 2010 <http://la.curbed.com/archives/2009/03/john_lautners_garcia_house_getting_a_po ol.php>. Speicher, Betsy. John Lautner, Architect. 14 October 1994. 26 March 2010 <http://speicher.com/lautnerb.htm>. Steele, James and D. Jenkins. Pierre Koenig. London: Phaidon, 1998. "The Case Study House Program." Arts & Architecture. 25 March 2010 <http://www.artsandarchitecture.com/case.houses/>. 30 The Pritzker Architecture Prize. 2010. 26 March 2010 <http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/year.html>. Unknown, Author. "Pierre K and the CSH Program." Course Materials for Architecture 444: Great Houses of Los Angeles (USC Fall 2009). 2009. Young, Paul. "Lautner, Lost and Found." The Los Angeles Times 10 April 2008.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract After he designed the Jetsons-esque Googie’s coffee shop, architect John Lautner (1911–1994) was panned for creating a laughable caricature of modern design. "Stick to residential," the critics implored, and for the most part, Lautner did: in a career that spanned a half-century, he designed nearly 200 homes, primarily in Los Angeles. As a residential architect, he excelled: his houses speak to the elemental nature of the living space, while also incorporating cutting-edge design. His innovative ideas fundamentally changed the way we think about housing, and his incorporation of technology and transportation in his designs (both residential and commercial) helped define Los Angeles’ modern image. Despite his imprint on the city, Lautner was rarely lauded for his design genius, and himself became disillusioned with the politics of the architectural world. As a result, few know the architectural legacy of a man who learned from Frank Lloyd Wright and influenced Frank Gehry, and in some ways surpassed them. But now, after increasing popularity on the real estate market and the exhibition of his first major career retrospective, people are starting to see the truth and beauty in Lautner’s work.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Scurlock, Hilary Jordan (author)

Core Title From Googie to great: uncovering truth and beauty in John Lautner's architecture

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 04/16/2010

Defense Date 05/14/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Architecture,design,Frank Gehry,Frank Lloyd Wright,Googie,John Lautner,Midcentury Modernism,modernism,OAI-PMH Harvest

Place Name California (states), Los Angeles (city or populated place)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Page, Ellis Tim (committee chair), Anawalt, Sasha M. (committee member), Regnier, Victor (committee member)

Creator Email hilary.scurlock@post.harvard.edu,hscurlock@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2930

Unique identifier UC1481995

Identifier etd-Scurlock-3649 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-308004 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2930 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Scurlock-3649.pdf

Dmrecord 308004

Document Type Thesis

Rights Scurlock, Hilary Jordan

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu