Customer Reviews

The Architecture of John Lautner (Universe Architecture Series)

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In the few months since I purchased this beautifully illustrated and impecabbly written monograph, John Lautner seems to have become Hollywood's favorite posthumous architect. This month's Vanity Fair features a screenwriter and his wife showcasing their restored Lautner masterwork while virtually every fashion spread in the same issue has one emaciated model or another posing, pouting and preening against a Lautner structure. This wonderful book travels Lautner's career arc from Wright disciple employing the tools and traits of the Master to the emergence of his own distinctive blend of wood, steel, concrete and location that, ultimately, bears little resemblance to his roots at Taliesin. As the text makes clear, Lautner shared Wright's prickly self-absorption and relentless self-philosophizing. However, as the book wanders from one beautifully executed commission to the next, you end up endorsing his sense of self. Like the best of Wright, each structure seems to organically emerge from its site to envelop the owners in a beautifully scaled and very human dwelling. A worthy tribute to John Lautner's artistry and vision.

My revised review of this book:
I initially purchased this book to educate myself when I hired Arthur Dyson, a colleague of Lautner's, to design our home. This is the best Lautner book I have found. It is the hard cover version published by Rizzoli. It includes a comprehensive chronology of his residences and a textual narrative that outlines his professional career. The quality of all the photos is excellent, having very good composition, lighting, resolution, and contrast. I also own John Lautner, Architect by Escher, and Lautner by Barbara-Ann Campbell-Lange. Those are also good books, but not nearly as high quality as The Architecture of John Lautner. For details, see my reviews of those books on Amazon. For photos of my house, designed by Arthur Dyson and built completely by my weary old hands, see [...]

My earlier review of this book:
This picture book of Lautner's work provides a new perspective to the innovative work of the architect. Although many of the buildings are captured in other publications, the images are different than anything out there. Reproduction quality is excellent, as well as composition.

Only way to improve this one is with a virtual tour. It would also be nice if the industry acknowledged this superior architecture - this is art, not just structure, and its truly American architecture. Current architectural trends are decidedly un-American; from Mediterranean, Spanish revivalism to Victorian - its all big time popular, but pure facade when compared to directly to American, European, and Asian modernism....

it is amazing to see how the designs of the mid 1900's seem so contemporary even to the present day. this book captures the designs via beautiful photography and commentary.
even the layman will be amazed to find that many of the buildings have been used in the media for many years. whether in movies or magazines they have been associated with the most contemporary designs of our time.
highlights this architects mastery of a typical material palette of concrete, wood, and steel.

It is wonderful to see a book devoted to the houses that John Lautner designed. However, the small format (8.2 x 6.5) doesn't do justice to the details of his designs.

This book is really beautiful, the pictures are of great value. If the architecture can be said as to be a little "out of fashion" (I mean architecture of the fifties), it is anyway wonderful and inspiring to see such beautiful house. there is a lot of wonderful pictures of all the major houses build by lautner during his career. the only things that can be missed in this book is that there is no drawings but anyway, I really believe it's a good book.

Lauther has been able to utillize unbuildable sites to create rooms with beautiful views.

Fantastic architecture and pictures.
I needed it for my new house as inspiration, and my architect has Luutner as one of his favourites.