July 13 - October 12, 2008
Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner
While Lautner has attained a cult-like status in the world of architecture and design, until now his achievement remains little known and often misunderstood by the public at large –- from his infamous coffee-shop “Googie” style at the start of his career; the misperception of his poetic experiments with form as Space Age or dystopic; to the dismissal of his later, perhaps most meditative houses, as Hollywood showcase.
The Hammer Museum brings John Lautner’s legacy and creative process to a wider audience by presenting the first major exhibition survey of his work: Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner, on view in Los Angeles from July 13 through October 12, 2008. An aesthetic, philosophical and social visionary, Lautner made buildings that continue to amaze architects and patrons alike with their formal variety and freedom, their structural originality and their sculptural force. Lautner’s work has come to represent some of the most important examples of architecture in Southern California including private residences such as Elrod House (1968) in Palm Springs and Malin House (1960) in Los Angeles -- also known as the “Chemosphere,” which hovers high over a canyon balanced on a single support -- all iconic examples of his work and vision.
Lautner is often referred to as an architect’s architect and many renowned practitioners, such as Frank Gehry, have cited him as an abiding influence. One can see the influence and legacy of his vision time and again in the work of architects that have followed him.
“This exhibition is long overdue as it recognizes one of architecture’s greatest visionaries,” says Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum. “We hope it will encourage wider recognition of Lautner’s work and working methods which have contributed so greatly to Southern California’s art and design history.”
Curated by historian Nicholas Olsberg and architect Frank Escher, Between Earth and Heaven will feature an exhibition design that is as visceral an experience as Lautner’s buildings themselves. Newly crafted large-scale models will give a sense of the internal spaces and scale of key projects and digital animations will reveal Lautner’s construction processes. Short color films by prize-winning documentarian Murray Grigor will convey the sensation of movement through these buildings and their sites, helping the visitor to feel the “vitality within repose” that Lautner sought to create. Surrounding this dramatic core will be a wealth of archival materials, including never-before-seen drawings, architectural renderings, study models and construction photographs which will offer visitors insight into how the structures and spaces unfolded in Lautner’s mind and emerged physically in their settings.
“Lautner’s dwellings took on dramatically new and varied shapes, as he moved toward the central theme of his career -- how to use architecture to sublimate the domestic, and to domesticate the sublime,” states Nicholas Olsberg. “As we follow him from his early work with Frank Lloyd Wright to the emergence of his own practice in the 1940s in rapidly expanding, automobile-based Los Angeles, we see how he responded to a changing society and the natural environment by developing an extraordinarily sensuous, thoughtful and innovative architecture, poised between feeling and reason, stillness and motion, vista and shelter.”
An international tour for Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner will include The Lighthouse, Centre for Architecture, Design and the City Glasgow, Scotland, March 19 – July 26, 2009; the Wolfsonian – Florida International University in Miami Beach, Fla. October 15, 2009 - January 17, 2010; and the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, Ca. February 20 - May 23, 2010. A richly illustrated and comprehensive full-color catalogue published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc accompanies the exhibition and is now available for $60. The public programs and house tours are described in detail on the right-hand column of this page.
This exhibition is made possible through major gifts from the Dunard Fund USA and Frank and Berta Gehry. Generous support has also been provided by the Lloyd E. Rigler—Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation and Helen and Sam Zell.
It has also been made possible, in part, by the 1011 Foundation, Inc., Bobby Kotick; the Harriett and Richard Gold/Gold Family Foundation; Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon; and by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
Additional support has been provided by Michael W. LaFetra; Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow; Adele Yellin; and the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.
The catalogue is published with the assistance of The Brotman Foundation of California and The Getty Foundation.
This exhibition was organized in cooperation with The John Lautner Foundation and The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner
About the Exhibition
John Lautner (1911-94), one of the most important and influential architects of the twentieth century, had a remarkable career spanning nearly six decades. Residing and working in Los Angeles during much of that time, his designs are known for their radical innovation with specific attention to materiality, space and a consciousness of the natural environment.While Lautner has attained a cult-like status in the world of architecture and design, until now his achievement remains little known and often misunderstood by the public at large –- from his infamous coffee-shop “Googie” style at the start of his career; the misperception of his poetic experiments with form as Space Age or dystopic; to the dismissal of his later, perhaps most meditative houses, as Hollywood showcase.
The Hammer Museum brings John Lautner’s legacy and creative process to a wider audience by presenting the first major exhibition survey of his work: Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner, on view in Los Angeles from July 13 through October 12, 2008. An aesthetic, philosophical and social visionary, Lautner made buildings that continue to amaze architects and patrons alike with their formal variety and freedom, their structural originality and their sculptural force. Lautner’s work has come to represent some of the most important examples of architecture in Southern California including private residences such as Elrod House (1968) in Palm Springs and Malin House (1960) in Los Angeles -- also known as the “Chemosphere,” which hovers high over a canyon balanced on a single support -- all iconic examples of his work and vision.
Lautner is often referred to as an architect’s architect and many renowned practitioners, such as Frank Gehry, have cited him as an abiding influence. One can see the influence and legacy of his vision time and again in the work of architects that have followed him.
“This exhibition is long overdue as it recognizes one of architecture’s greatest visionaries,” says Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum. “We hope it will encourage wider recognition of Lautner’s work and working methods which have contributed so greatly to Southern California’s art and design history.”
Curated by historian Nicholas Olsberg and architect Frank Escher, Between Earth and Heaven will feature an exhibition design that is as visceral an experience as Lautner’s buildings themselves. Newly crafted large-scale models will give a sense of the internal spaces and scale of key projects and digital animations will reveal Lautner’s construction processes. Short color films by prize-winning documentarian Murray Grigor will convey the sensation of movement through these buildings and their sites, helping the visitor to feel the “vitality within repose” that Lautner sought to create. Surrounding this dramatic core will be a wealth of archival materials, including never-before-seen drawings, architectural renderings, study models and construction photographs which will offer visitors insight into how the structures and spaces unfolded in Lautner’s mind and emerged physically in their settings.
“Lautner’s dwellings took on dramatically new and varied shapes, as he moved toward the central theme of his career -- how to use architecture to sublimate the domestic, and to domesticate the sublime,” states Nicholas Olsberg. “As we follow him from his early work with Frank Lloyd Wright to the emergence of his own practice in the 1940s in rapidly expanding, automobile-based Los Angeles, we see how he responded to a changing society and the natural environment by developing an extraordinarily sensuous, thoughtful and innovative architecture, poised between feeling and reason, stillness and motion, vista and shelter.”
An international tour for Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner will include The Lighthouse, Centre for Architecture, Design and the City Glasgow, Scotland, March 19 – July 26, 2009; the Wolfsonian – Florida International University in Miami Beach, Fla. October 15, 2009 - January 17, 2010; and the Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Springs, Ca. February 20 - May 23, 2010. A richly illustrated and comprehensive full-color catalogue published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc accompanies the exhibition and is now available for $60. The public programs and house tours are described in detail on the right-hand column of this page.
This exhibition is made possible through major gifts from the Dunard Fund USA and Frank and Berta Gehry. Generous support has also been provided by the Lloyd E. Rigler—Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation and Helen and Sam Zell.
It has also been made possible, in part, by the 1011 Foundation, Inc., Bobby Kotick; the Harriett and Richard Gold/Gold Family Foundation; Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon; and by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
Additional support has been provided by Michael W. LaFetra; Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow; Adele Yellin; and the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.
The catalogue is published with the assistance of The Brotman Foundation of California and The Getty Foundation.
This exhibition was organized in cooperation with The John Lautner Foundation and The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
This exhibition is made possible through major gifts from the Dunard Fund USA and Frank and Berta Gehry.
Generous support has also been provided by the Lloyd E. Rigler—Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation and Helen and Sam Zell.
It has also been made possible, in part, by the 1011 Foundation, Inc., Bobby Kotick; the Harriett and Richard Gold/Gold Family Foundation; Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon; the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs; The Fran and Ray Stark Foundation; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts as well as Michael W. LaFetra, Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow, and Adele Yellin. The catalogue is published with the assistance of The Brotman Foundation of California and The Getty Foundation. Los Angeles Magazine is the official media sponsor of the exhibition.
This exhibition was organized in cooperation with The John Lautner Foundation and The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
Generous support has also been provided by the Lloyd E. Rigler—Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation and Helen and Sam Zell.
It has also been made possible, in part, by the 1011 Foundation, Inc., Bobby Kotick; the Harriett and Richard Gold/Gold Family Foundation; Ronnie and Vidal Sassoon; the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs; The Fran and Ray Stark Foundation; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts as well as Michael W. LaFetra, Trina Turk and Jonathan Skow, and Adele Yellin. The catalogue is published with the assistance of The Brotman Foundation of California and The Getty Foundation. Los Angeles Magazine is the official media sponsor of the exhibition.
This exhibition was organized in cooperation with The John Lautner Foundation and The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
Sunday Jul 13, 2pm
Curators Walkthrough
With co-curators Nicholas Olsberg and Frank Escher. Walkthroughs at 2pm and 4pm.
Curators Walkthrough
With co-curators Nicholas Olsberg and Frank Escher. Walkthroughs at 2pm and 4pm.
Tuesday Jul 15, 7pmPanel Discussion: Building Character
Modernist Architecture in Film
A distinguished panel discusses high profile modernist monuments that ultimately become protagonists when used as locations in feature films. Highlighted architecture will include John Lautner's Chemosphere, which played a starring role in Body Double, Richard Neutra's Lovell House, featured in L.A. Confidential, Adalberto Libera’s Casa Malaparte in Godard’s Contempt, and the Marin County Civic Center which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and is a central location in GATTACA.
Edward Dimendberg is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Visual Studies, and German at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. He is currently completing a book on the architecture of Diller Scofidio + Renfro as a University of California President's Fellow in the Humanities.
Anne Friedberg is Professor and Chair of Critical Studies at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and is a historian and theorist of modern media culture. Her books include: Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern, Close Up 1927-1933: Cinema and Modernism, and The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft.
Barbara Lamprecht, M.Arch., and Senior Architectural Historian at ICF – Jones & Stokes, specializes in Early and Mid-Century Modernism and is the author of Richard Neutra – Complete Works and Neutra – Selected Projects.
Jon Yoder is Assistant Professor in the Syracuse University School of Architecture and a Ph.D. candidate in the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. His doctoral dissertation, “Widescreen Architecture: The Immersive Visuality of John Lautner,” takes Lautner’s ocular-centric projects as lenses through which to focus on issues of experiential and projective vision.
Co-presented by the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design.
Friday Sep 19Symposium: Against Reason
John Lautner and Postwar Architecture
Co-presented by the Hammer Museum and the Getty Research Institute, this two-day symposium includes a series of panels and presentations in which scholars, architects, engineers, and architectural historians employ John Lautner’s nonrational philosophy as a critical window onto postwar architecture in the United States and abroad.
Friday, September 19
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum
3pm
Exhibition Walkthrough
Nicholas Olsberg and Frank Escher (exhibition co-curators)
4pm
Welcome remarks
Ann Philbin (Director, Hammer Museum)
4:15pm
Session 1: The Search for Fluidity
Stanford Anderson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Alan Hess (architecture critic and author)
Robert Bruegmann (University of Illinois, Chicago)
Followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Wim de Wit (Getty Research Institute).
7:30pm
Engaging Lautner’s
Built Legacy in the 21st Century
Four avant-garde architects discuss the challenge of adding a new addition to one of Lautner’s residential structures. Participants include: Hernán Díaz Alonso, Principal, Xefirotarch; Neil M. Denari, Principal, Neil M. Denari Architects; Winka Dubbeldam, Principal, Archi-Tectonics; Frank Escher, Principal, Escher GuneWardena Architecture. Moderated by Christopher J. Alexander, Getty Research Institute.
Saturday, September 20
Harold M. Williams Auditorium, Getty Center
10am
Keynote: Los Angeles, Capital of Lautner’s America
Jean-Louis Cohen (New York University)
11am
Session 2: The Shapes of Anti-Rationalism
Eric Mumford (Washington University in St. Louis)
Timothy Rohan (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Dell Upton (University of California, Los Angeles).
2pm
Session 3: The California Condition
Sandy Isenstadt (Yale University)
Marc Treib (University of California, Berkeley)
3:15pm
Session 4: The Architecture of Attraction
Nicholas Olsberg (exhibition co-curator)
Sylvia Lavin (University of California, Los Angeles) Sessions 3 and 4 followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Greg Hise (University of Nevada, Las Vegas).
8pm
Free-Form Living: A Conversation with the
Clients and Colleagues of John Lautner
A lively panel of Lautner’s original clients and colleagues explore the challenges of creating and inhabiting buildings that reshaped the image of modernist architecture in the late 20th century. Participants include Helena Arahuete, Jacklyn Burchill, Kelly Lynch, Robain Poirier, John de la Vaux, and Guy Zebert. Moderated by Rani Singh, Getty Research Institute.
Admission is free. Separate reservations are required for each day of the symposium and evening conversations. Please call 310-440-7300 or visit the event calender at www.getty.edu to register. Please see www.getty.edu for updated information and a full schedule.
Tuesday Sep 23, 7pm
Panel Discussion: Architecture and Seduction
Bachelor Pads and Sex Machines
From leisurely pleasure palaces and the bon vivant’s intimate dens of seduction, to the tantalizing, suggestive tease of retail spaces, this panel discusses the relationship between architecture and eroticism. Moderated by Norman Millar, AIA, Director, Woodbury niversity School of Architecture. Panelists include: Paulette Singley, Professor, School of Architecture at Woodbury University; Frank Escher, architect and exhibition co-curator; Curator Renata Hejduk, Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Theory, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University College of Design; Kazys Varnelis, Columbia University, New York.
Panel Discussion: Architecture and Seduction
Bachelor Pads and Sex Machines
From leisurely pleasure palaces and the bon vivant’s intimate dens of seduction, to the tantalizing, suggestive tease of retail spaces, this panel discusses the relationship between architecture and eroticism. Moderated by Norman Millar, AIA, Director, Woodbury niversity School of Architecture. Panelists include: Paulette Singley, Professor, School of Architecture at Woodbury University; Frank Escher, architect and exhibition co-curator; Curator Renata Hejduk, Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Theory, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Arizona State University College of Design; Kazys Varnelis, Columbia University, New York.
Saturday Sep 27, 10amUCLA Extension Course
Between Architecture and Cinema
Co-presented with the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design
Taught by Jon Yoder, Assistant Professor at the Syracuse University School of Architecture and PhD candidate in the UCLA Department of Architecture + Urban Design. Yoder’s doctoral dissertation, “Widescreen Architecture: The Immersive Visuality of John Lautner,” takes Lautner’s projects as lenses through which to focus on issues of experiential and projective vision.
To register please call 310-206-1422 or visit www.uclaextension.edu.
Thursday Oct 2, 6pmExhibition Walkthrough
Co-presented with the UCLA Department of Architecture + Urban Design
This walkthrough is part of a new series of gallery talks featuring practictioners discussing the work of others in their field. Craig Hodgetts, FAIA, Principal and Co-Founder of Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture, is an internationally recognized architect known for his imaginative synthesis of architecture, arts, and technology. He is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.