John Lautner

Steve Shaw was living off Mulholland Drive in a '60s post-and-beam home that he had just renovated when he got the itch to do it again. It was 2005, and a large lot on Abbott Kinney Boulevard, in the heart of bohemian Venice's restaurant and boutique row, had come on the market. "I saw it one day and bought it the next," says the fashion photographer, known for his sexy yet timeless photos of glitterati--Hilary Swank, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba and Paris Hilton, to name a few. "I've always loved Venice.

ASK the most ardent John Lautner fan about the architect's Harpel house, and you may get a shrug. After all, the house sits in the shadow -- if not quite literally, then figuratively -- of Lautner's landmark Chemosphere, one of Los Angeles' most famous residences. What's more, Harpel was significantly altered by previous owners, one of whom added a second story and another who installed stucco walls, track lighting and aluminum window frames, all ill-suited for Lautner's 1956 design.

If homes were music, John Lautner's designs would be Duke Ellington compositions. The architect, a onetime Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice, compared the importance of the jazz composer's use of rests to the significance of the voids in his architecture. Lautner's 1949 Schaffer Residence, set in a wooded area at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains in Glendale, represents the simple, uncluttered look the architect favored, fusing concrete, wood, glass and hardscapes into a singular vision.

John Lautner favored the use of earthy materials, such as brick, concrete and wood. The goal was to seamlessly connect a home's indoors with its outdoor setting. His 1947 Gantvoort Residence atop La Canada Flintridge represents that sensibility. The home faces east, capturing the morning sun through a glass wall opening onto the patio and garden. The original ocher-colored floors extend outside.

As DIRECTOR of the Hammer Museum at UCLA for the last nine years, Anne Philbin has spearheaded an abundance of memorable exhibits, including "Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective" in 2003, the current Kara Walker exhibit and brought Jean Prouve's "A Tropical House" to the museum's courtyard in 2005, just to name a few. This summer's upcoming exhibit on modern architect John Lautner, "Between Earth and Heaven," has been several years in the making and is...

FEW GRASPED how John Lautner used architecture to embrace the natural world. He opened a Sunset Boulevard diner to the sky and was dismayed to see it become a symbol of "Googie" Atomic Age design. His flying saucer-shaped Chemosphere residence, conceived to immerse residents in sweeping mountain and city views, became emblematic of the bachelor-pad Hollywood Modernism he rejected. Movies sensationalized his creations as James Bond-style backdrops for sex machines and lethally bored rich kids.

If there is a single big idea driving "Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner," which opened Sunday at the Hammer Museum, it's that Lautner needs to be rescued from his own hardened reputation. Most museum retrospectives begin with an effort to dust off or polish up the historical record. This one, at times, feels like a full-on rehabilitation campaign.

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.

WOOD-BLOCK models, drawings and notes for 200 Modern buildings and projects completed over half a century have taken over four rooms of Ray Kappe's Pacific Palisades house. But in a few weeks, moving vans will transport the architect's life's work a few miles away to its permanent new home: the antiquities-rich Getty Center.

Acclaimed Modernist John Lautner gave a Hollywood Hills house he designed in 1956 the name of its owner, Willis "Bill" Harpel. It was a common practice to name houses for their owners, but in this case, Harpel earned it. Alongside master builder John de la Vaux, Harpel worked as a subcontractor, pouring "all the concrete himself," Lautner wrote in "John Lautner, Architect," published by Princeton Architectural Press. Harpel spent eight hours a day on the radio as an announcer.