Lautner on L.A.

When talking about Los Angeles, acclaimed architect John Lautner could sound as bitter as a frustrated screenwriter. Alan Hess, author of the recently published “The Architecture of John Lautner” (Rizzoli), explains how Lautner, despite his misgivings, managed to design such visionary Southern California residences as the Chemosphere (pictured at right), Silvertop and Bob and Dolores Hope’s Palm Springs home during his five-decade career. Lautner died in 1994.

You quote Lautner as saying things like, “I wish I had never landed in this chiseling city,” and “You’ve got to be a faker and a salesman and a bull****ter to get along.” Why was he such a curmudgeon about Los Angeles?

Lautner grew up in northern Michigan, a beautiful, natural place along the shores of Lake Superior--clean, big rocks, like the coasts of small-town Maine. And he came here after working under Frank Lloyd Wright, in the ideal, contrarian community of Wright’s Taliesin, run by a philosopher king in magnificent surroundings. So it isn’t surprising that he was completely predisposed to dislike L.A., with its Hollywood element, the ticky-tacky thinness of its stucco architecture, the hypocrisy of its lawyers and bankers.

Certainly, his homes and commercial buildings--with their swooping concrete and panoramas of glass--seem more pleased about their L.A. surroundings than he was.

There were many things that Lautner really enjoyed and delighted in about the city, although he never let on. You can see the joy of the automobile in his Googies restaurant, and many of his houses celebrate open, mobile lifestyles and recall the grand cultural sweeps of the 405-10 interchange. Also, he embraced the futurism of Los Angeles, in things like voice-activated windows and the daring of the Chemosphere house, which he didn’t exactly see as a flying saucer. No other city would have better stimulated his work.