John Lautner Biography, Buildings and Best Books

John Lautner (1911-1994) was an American architect who spent most of his career in Los Angeles. A former apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, he designed houses of astonishing structural daring and spatial freedom, including the octagonal Chemosphere perched on a single column, the Sheats-Goldstein Residence, the Elrod House in Palm Springs and the Arango Marbrisa House in Acapulco, many of them made famous by films.

Michigan and Taliesin

Lautner was born in Marquette, Michigan, in 1911. His father was a professor and his mother a painter, and as a teenager he helped build the family’s cabin on Lake Superior. After graduating in English from Northern Michigan University in 1933, he joined Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship, where he stayed for six years and supervised several Wright houses.

Los Angeles and the early houses

In 1939 Lautner moved to Los Angeles to supervise Wright’s houses there and opened his own practice. His own house in Silver Lake (1940) and the Carling House (1947) began a series of residences that used the hillside sites of Los Angeles in inventive ways. He also designed coffee shops in the Googie style, such as Googies on Sunset Boulevard (1949).

The Chemosphere and Sheats-Goldstein

The Chemosphere (1960), an octagonal house raised on a single concrete column above a steep slope in the Hollywood Hills, became one of the most recognisable houses in America. The Sheats-Goldstein Residence (1963), with its coffered concrete roof and glass walls opening to the city, was later rebuilt and extended by its owner James Goldstein with Lautner’s collaboration and has been donated to LACMA.

Palm Springs and Acapulco

Lautner’s later works include the Elrod House in Palm Springs (1968), with its circular concrete roof over a living room carved into the rock, and the Arango Marbrisa House in Acapulco (1973), a vast terrace over the bay. He died in Los Angeles in 1994. His archive is held by the Getty Research Institute.