Keeping his eye on earth and sky

Lautner built the Pearlman mountain cabin in Idyllwild in 1957, with huge pleated front windows overlooking the majestic forest. The 1968 Elrod residence, in Palm Springs, captured the cosmic drama of the desert with an approach that some admirers liken to a pavilion -- though this nuance was probably lost on people who watched James Bond wrestle there in "Diamonds Are Forever" with a couple of scantily clad knockout bodyguards named Bambi and Thumper, in a vivid illustration of the dichotomy between Lautner's intentions and his image.

Usually, "architecture is designed to look at the house," curator Olsberg said. "He used architecture to frame what you see outside it. It's a metaphysical relationship . . . the idea that you're related to the sky and the horizon and the trees."

In the exhibition (partially sponsored by Tribune Co. chief Sam Zell, an owner of a Lautner home whose wife, Helen, is a new member of the Hammer board), designers have used films and photographs to create what curator Escher calls "archipelagoes" -- visual islands where visitors can look through the models and viscerally experience the stunning forests and mountain settings.

By the late 1960s, Lautner was a charismatic magnet. Andreas Simoncelli, of Rome, improved his English by listening to Lautner's percussive delivery of his favorite words -- "Human, Strong, Free, People, Real Beauty, Light, Wind, Sun" -- and habitual platitudes, such as "You're wasting your time if you don't know how to hold up the roof!" Simoncelli said in the Taliesin journal tribute.

In those heady days, " 'Impossible, can't be done, can't find it' and such, were synonyms of incompetence, lack of will," former associate Helena Arahuete recalled for Taliesin.

During this buoyant era, Lautner built the 1973 Marbrisa residence in Acapulco. The summit of the house evoked a spectacular mountaintop, and an infinity moat surrounding it appeared to merge with the bay far below, transporting inhabitants to a dimension that truly seemed suspended somewhere between Earth and heaven.

It was the majestic prelude to a lot of disappointment as the U.S. economy slowed.

Lautner designed a 1979 Palm Springs place for Bob Hope that was originally shaped like the skirts of a volcano. But Hope "made life hell for my father," Judith Lautner says. "He destroyed a lot of the thinking. He just stepped in and said 'No, no, no.' "