The Uncommon Man

Architecture aficionados revere John Lautner for his flying saucer-shaped Chemosphere in the Hollywood Hills, his seminal Googie’s coffee shop on Sunset Strip, the expansive Bob Hope home in Palm Desert and the elegant, imaginative Arango residence above Acapulco.

Few are aware that the Los Angeles-based Lautner (1911-94), Frank Lloyd Wright’s finest student and lifelong friend, designed three structures in Orange County. You can see Wright’s influence at Alto Capistrano, which now houses the Museum of Architecture. But Lautner was a genius, well, in his own Wright, in no sense derivative.

“Lautner never copied Wright,” said West Hollywood-based Helena Arahuete, Lautner’s only associate architect. “He never even copied himself.

“Style is a word he particularly disliked,” she said. “He hated the limiting concept of style. He tried to stay away from it, even from his own style, as he tried to consider each project as a new and fresh solution, never to be repeated.

“Organic architecture, the beauty of nature, were Lautner’s inspirations, and he tried to create as nature does. What’s always most remarkable about his work is the diversity of solutions.”

The maverick architect’s three local designs--Alto Capistrano, originally headquarters for a planned community in San Juan Capistrano that otherwise remained unbuilt, and homes in Laguna Beach and Balboa--couldn’t be more strikingly different.

The Emerald Bay home seems to be all angles, the Balboa residence all curves. Alto Capistrano uses a hexagonal motif. When each was designed may have something to do with the differences--they represent successive decades from the 1960s to the ‘80s. But, according to Arahuete, the demands of the site, and of his clients, played a far more important role.

“Lautner would have a lengthy first meeting with a client to determine not only the project needs but also the personal sensibilities, the individual preferences,” Arahuete said. “Some people feel more comfortable with curved sheltering shapes, others with very elegant, simple, angular shapes.”

Within those shapes, the Michigan-born Lautner pushed technology to the limits: He first used frameless glass with clear silicone sealant in the 1950s; his Orange County structures incorporate concrete extensively.

Lautner at first designed “very beautiful and complex” structures using conventional construction techniques, according to Frank Escher of Los Angeles-based Escher Gunewardena Architecture.

“From the 1960s on, he goes to concrete and develops these incredible sculptural forms,” Escher said. “The important thing is that those forms always result from the idea for a space. He never designed form for the sake of form. Every house is different, a response to the site and the client.”

Despite Lautner’s innovative use of concrete and glass, nature remained his alpha and omega.

Said Arahuete: “A sense of durability was very important to him--each design must be timeless versus passing styles and fads. A building must last much longer than some fashion. Inspiration in nature is timeless.”

Balboa Island

Lautner designed the Rawlins residence (1982), which Escher described as “a brilliant solution in response to a site,” for the last available undeveloped lot on Balboa Island. The site offered an extremely narrow lot with houses close in on both sides, but also a fabulous view overlooking the bay.

His solution: Concrete walls without windows on both sides provide absolute privacy and soundproofing from neighbors; a huge sliding frameless glass door opens one end of the house completely to the view--and disappears at the touch of a button.

According to Lautner’s own notes in “John Lautner, Architect” (Princeton Architectural Press, N.Y., 1998), “The living room glass wall is curved and motorized. The hanging glass slowly slides around the north side of the house, stacking outside the side wall, completely invisible from within the house. The living room becomes an extension of the terrace, completely open to the bay.”

Comments Arahuete: “The view of the marina activity, the blue of the bay and the boats is brought right into the living space. It becomes an integral part of the house, an ever-changing sight at different times of the day and under different conditions, a sense of infinite variety. That was the goal for all [Lautner’s] designs.”

The home’s upper floor is narrower, set in from the concrete walls, allowing continuous skylights that soften the glare from the glass end of the living room.

Laguna Beach

Marjorie Rawlins is a music lover. Sculptress Johanna Jordan, original owner of the Berns-Jordan residence (1973), needed a large studio and a sense of union with her dramatic surroundings. The wood-and-concrete home is set on a steep mountainside lot in Emerald Bay overlooking the ocean.

Extensive use of glass again plays a crucial role in Lautner’s solution. Three sides of the living room are glass, and the effect is that of a space floating above unobstructed views; Lautner described it as “an island in the sky.” Trees surround the house; the living room walls and ceiling are natural mahogany.

As at the Rawlins home, Arahuete said: “Lautner captured the best views and the beauty of nature and brought them right into the living space.”

But, noted Escher, that is only part of Lautner’s inspired response to the difficult site: “From the outside, you can’t appreciate the home’s spatial complexity, how all these spaces are interlocked, very beautifully put together.”

San Juan Capistrano

Escher characterizes Lautner’s Alto Capistrano (1966) as “an interesting building, but not one of his most important buildings. But you can see even here how he thought about space, how he connected the inside to the outside.”

Alto Capistrano served as a dental office and insurance agency before falling into disrepair in the 1980s. The building’s now back in fine shape; renovation of the grounds continues. Among a number of exhibits at the museum, artifacts from the unrealized Alto Capistrano project make up “Lost and Found”; the museum, (949) 443-5288, is open on weekends.

The hexagonal plan of Alto Capistrano uses a minimum of walls, hence separation between inside and outside is minimal; expansive sliding-glass doors hang from above with no lower track or threshold. Mitered glass walls, bricks uncut at angled corners and cantilevered deck and ceiling overhangs show Wright’s influence. During the day, there’s no need for artificial light.

“Beautiful natural light comes through the central skylight, lighting all the spaces,” Arahuete said. “Cantilevers contribute to the feeling of floating in space, the lightness typical of Lautner’s structures. Frameless glass helps provides uninterrupted views of the pond beyond.”

Lautner achieves his goal, according to Arahuete.

“The feeling is one of openness and durability,” she said. “It has a fairly timeless quality.”