Overview

One of the visionary architects of the twentieth century, John Lautner designed dramatically innovative buildings with a rare sensitivity to site, vista, and structure. Accompanying a full-scale exhibition on Lautner at Los Angeles's Hammer Museum, this is the first publication to comprehensively explore his work, including his apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright and the cultural and geographical context of Los Angeles, through an intensive examination of the archives of the John Lautner Foundation. Although Lautner's dramatic houses are well-known, this is the first time his work has been seriously examined by scholars. Historian Nicholas Olsberg contributes an analysis of Lautner's evolution, providing social and cultural context. Architect Frank Escher covers the relationship between his experiments in structure and poetics of space, and Jean-Louis Cohen discusses Lautner's place in new design tendencies.This richly illustrated monograph includes previously unpublished sketches, drawings, construction images, and Lautner's own photographs to unveil the evolution, originality, and logic of his designs, focusing on the atmospheres and vistas they establish and the connections to landscape and sensory fluidity that mark their innovative spatial arguments.

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9780847830145

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Reviews

The authors succeed not only in communicating why Lautner was important, but why his explorations of form and structure were inevitable, given the vast postwar changes in society...beautifully illustrated and laid out... <i>Modernism</i> This prized volume is more than a mere beauty book. While marveling at how gorgeous sweeping concrete can be, one is also afforded how it can be, with a look at detailed drawings showing the workings of the architect....a presentation of the compelling ideas, intentions, and inventions behind Lautner's heavenly designs. <i>Society of Archiectural Historians News</i>

The authors succeed not only in communicating why Lautner was important, but why his explorations of form and structure were inevitable, given the vast postwar changes in society...beautifully illustrated and laid out... Modernism This prized volume is more than a mere beauty book. While marveling at how gorgeous sweeping concrete can be, one is also afforded how it can be, with a look at detailed drawings showing the workings of the architect....a presentation of the compelling ideas, intentions, and inventions behind Lautner's heavenly designs. Society of Archiectural Historians News

The authors succeed not only in communicating why Lautner was important, but why his explorations of form and structure were inevitable, given the vast postwar changes in society...beautifully illustrated and laid out... ~ Modernism <br> This prized volume is more than a mere beauty book. While marveling at how gorgeous sweeping concrete can be, one is also afforded how it can be, with a look at detailed drawings showing the workings of the architect....a presentation of the compelling ideas, intentions, and inventions behind Lautner's heavenly designs. ~ Society of Archiectural Historians News

Author Information

Nicholas Olsberg is the former director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. Jean-Louis Cohen is the Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Frank Escher is a principal in the architecture firm Escher GuneWardena. In 1994, he worked with John Lautner to produce the architect's monograph.

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