Lautner's 1979 Segel residence in Malibu was one of his more peaceful later experiences, curator Escher says. The wavy, wafer-shaped roof floated above the house, dramatically framing the dunes and ocean.
But many of the structures pictured in the brilliant drawings displayed at the Hammer were never built. Lautner designed a pool cradled in a womb-like hill, like a lagoon in a volcanic crater, for jazz legend Miles Davis. Then Davis died.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, July 20, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 31 words Type of Material: Correction
Hammer admission: A list accompanying an article in the July 13 Arts & Music section about the John Lautner exhibition at the Hammer Museum said admission was $5. It is $7.
Public commissions were scarce. No one begged this talented maverick to design a Walt Disney Concert Hall.
He got older, angrier. Fire robbed him of the home he shared with Elizabeth. Elizabeth died, robbing him of his soul mate. Painful peripheral neuropathy put him in a wheelchair. He died on Oct. 24, 1994, at 83, leaving a widow, Francisca, his onetime housekeeper, who spoke as little English as he spoke Spanish.
Today, though, the greatest victims of the civic neglect he suffered are Angelenos themselves. His cultists are forced to turn to movies -- "The Big Lebowski," "Charlie's Angels," "Less Than Zero," "Body Double" -- that use Lautner architecture to convey the expansive futurism that is Los Angeles' eternal conceit.
At the fringes of this fictional appreciation is his last remaining Los Angeles building completely open to the public: the Beachwood Market.
The stripped-down relic gives few clues of the soaring heights Lautner scaled.
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anne-marie.oconnor@latimes.com
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'Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner'
Where: Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood
When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays
Ends: Oct. 12
Price: $5
Contact: (310) 443-7000 or www.hammer.ucla.edu
Also
What: Tour of the Sheats/Goldstein residence
When: Aug. 24, Oct. 12
Price: $55
