John Lautner

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

Career

His father was John Edward immigrated in 1870 from Germany. Lautner Jr. grew up in rural Michigan and completed an English degree at Northern Michigan University before he became a student of Frank Lloyd Wright as part of the Taliesin project. The purpose of the Taliesin School (named after the Wright built from 1911 building complex ) was the promotion of an independent, modern American architecture. 1940 John Lautner opened his own architectural office in Los Angeles.

Space - Age

From the beginning, he combined a high level of functionality with an original, modern design. The most famous example is the 1960 resulting Malin Residence, also known as Chemosphere. Built on a steep hillside above the San Fernando Valley building is reminiscent in shape to an octagonal UFO, with a single concrete pier supports the construction, which actually enhances the effect of floating.

Other notable buildings are the 1963 built and 1988 converted Sheats - Goldstein Residence, which offers a striking triangular roof, and in 1947 converted Carling House, whose befindliches on a rotatable platform living room could be pivoted outwardly and thus turned to a terrace was. Together many of its buildings are unusual roof structures that act openly often sweeping or upwards ( Silvertop: Reiner- Burchill Residence of 1963; Arango Residence, 1973).

Googie

Apart from the numerous space-age buildings John Lautner is also known as co-founder of commercial Googie architecture. In 1949 he created a design for Googie 's Coffee Shop, whose characteristics were the extensive use of glass walls and elaborate billboards. The catchy self-referential design with the materials of glass, steel and neon has been adopted by many restaurant chains and remained influential until the sixties.

Influence

Lautner's eye-catching works were often used as a backdrop for Hollywood movies: Elrod House in the James Bond adventure Diamonds Are Forever ( Diamonds are forever, 1971), Malin Residence in Brian De Palma's Body Double ( Body Double, 1984) and McG's 3 Angels Charlie ( 2000) (but this was only a studio set which was built to resemble the Chemosphere ), Sheats - Goldstein Residence in Joel Coen's the Big Lebowski (1998) and McG 3 Charlie's Angels - Full Throttle (2003 ) or Jacobsen House in Robert Benton's Twilight ( Twilight, 1998).

Over more than 50 years of John Lautner surprised with new buildings, which he always remained his credo of a symbiosis of functionality and original design faithfully. Numerous awards attest to his reputation as a leading, often underestimated representatives of the space-age architecture.