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As part of our work Celebration 25. AnniversaryWe reproduce formative magazine stories before our website has been launched. This story has previously appeared in the show Djling February 2002. years.
Returning the classic – which requires a little More than original plans, a great contractor and the king’s ransom is easy. Renewal One is the second thing entirely. Faced with the harmonization of personal needs with conservation responsibilities, each home owner cursed / blessed masterpiece, during one crisis or other, asked, “what would the name of the genius here be here”
Anne Friedberg and Howard Rodman actually received an answer – and from one of the icons of architecture Los Angeles, John Lautner. In the city known for its residences, Lautner’s achievements is the singular: more than any of its contemporaries – including their teacher, Frank Lloyd Vright– He knew the essence of the city he claimed to dislike him and turn it into architecture. Lautner’s 60-unusual residence, which include world famous flying shaped in the shape of a plate HemosphereIt seems that they were singled out from LA Sexuality and Corruption, Friendship and Inaccessibility, Fantasy Capacity and its hard, dark strength. It is often described as “observatory”, equally observations of Lautner’s works – real, cultural and imaginative topography of LA’s state of mind.
Given his vision, it is surprisingly learning – as Friedberg and Rodman – that Lautner worried less about how his creations looked like they were feeling those who lived in them. In 1992, the couple bought the house of Zahn, a double structure with two bedrooms designed by Lautner in 1957. for the elderly homeopathic doctor. How much he appreciated his uniqueness. Friedberg and Rodman, writers who work at home – she is the author’s Window shopping: Cinema and Postmodernwrote a scenario for Joe Gould’s secret–The renassial remodeling required for accommodation of their needs are known and eventually approached Lautner. The results proved transformation – not only the structure but also to clients.
It is ironic that it is considering the outcome, Friedberg and Rodman did not seek the house at all. “We read the weekly ads of the property, which we worked as fun,” Friedberg remembers. “And Howard said,” Hey! For the first time in the market. John Lautner. “We’ve never gone to look at the house before.” They contacted the most famous, shiny tailoring Crosby Doe, Mossler, Deasy and Doe, real estate companies, specializing in classical architectural properties. Doe turned out to be a classic solo. “He is an extremely dapper man with a small mustache who often wears ascots.” Rodman says. “And he drives or Vintage Fasl Vega, Jaguar or 1966. International Roads for Combineers – All Returned in Goodness.” The presentation for the presentation has spread to its work. “Crosby showed a house in December, January, one of those months, the air is very clear, and the view really jumps on you,” Rodman remembers. “He chose the class,” Friedberg added. “Twilight. You entered the driveway and you could see the ocean. Sidents were just amazing.”
And the house, in the canyon at Beacheva, above Hollywood, is a smaller gem. Trapezoidal shape, the exterior is characterized by the twin adjustable, perforated steel screens, which provide a shade, privacy and ventilation. Inside, the central atrium filled with light begins in the glass entry, from which the staircase of wind to the main floor and air conditioning in a generous roof light supported by the cross beams.
Rodman “was very recorded with himself as some kind of fantasy,” who combined lair In Alfred Hitchcockov North of Northwest with a hug of futuristic (for 1957) Gadgeters. Lautner has built a house with an intercom, which connects the kitchen with a base bedroom, and what a relative is “one-way-to-need-to-week low-voltage relay connections. Now you can turn only a few places. Cancel – now we know If they were just a few electricians. They got it just a few electricians. They got that they still realized that they were just a few others, and then each light in the house that continues every light that was continued. “
After arriving like tire shots, Friedberg and Rodman, as potential customers – and, accept their role, they decided not to take the first place they saw. “We went with Crosbee and looked at about thirty-five other houses,” says Rodman. “And we have the best architectural education you could get.” Due knowledge of the city’s and its styles, which delivers from Jaguar’s driver’s seat, increased Friedberg and Rodman’s appreciation, not only from LA superlative housing architecture, but uniqueness of Lautner’s Creation. “We returned to that three times,” Rodman remembers. “It was a day that we realized that the approach was in a certain way, the stairs of a spiral in the same direction, and in fact it is a nautilus. Or see the details of the walls float.” The means of DOE, who called for the literary past of Beachwood, the couple took the flood.
As structured, however, 1,800 square feet and residential square spaces (with an additional room for communal space on the ground floor) could not accept the need for office space and bookshelves. When all architects approached, including such heavy Moss as Eric Owen Moss, and Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson, proved to be reluctance to impress classics, Rodmans turned into Maestro himself.
The architect, who was 81, arrived in Silver BMW with Lautner Vaiti Ploče; The big man, it is imposed as his creations, is stricter directly on deck and examined the city. After more than 30 years, Lautner was obvious to return. “He pointed out all kinds of characteristics,” says Rodman. “He said, about the Palica for Douglas Fir in the kitchen,” we had that tree especially minced; If the house caught fireIt should take three hours to burn through it. “”
Lautner, however, was not soft. “” Do you like the house? “” Rodman reminds him that he said. “” Or maybe you’re such people who love that trendy facade shit in Santa Monica. “By which I think he thought Frank Gehri. “Rodman attributes this bonding, neglecting to promote) and personality (he thought of depression that he could also do that and that most could have done that and it was outdated and that it was also depressed and And that it became Crosby Doe. “
However, disappointment is not equal to rigidity. “John was very specific,” Rodman remembers. “He said. ‘The houses were built for people living in them.” “It was agreed that a funnel-shaped glass chamber formed an entry on the ground floor on the ground floor attached to the outside door to the service room, and the room only rested to hold the voluminophone room.
Lautner’s work methods proved unique as the house itself. “He was joking that he was not a good drawing man, because there was no value in him,” Helena Arahuete, who worked for him for 23 years, was kept Lautner Associates. “They would often just do a rough sketch, and then give it to someone else to develop.” Lautner, she explains, was the “idea” that focused on the place and clients. “He wanted to know,” When you do, do you like light and openness? Do you like the closed space? “” Rodman says. “At one point he walked around the living room and asked me to point out where I would feel the most comfortable working and went straight to the corner. That, I mean, informed where my office was.” Cash includes pair of custom parts, Lautner’s signature signature on bookshelf that contains recessed standards that disappear behind books and sliders are finished and covering that the couple works together or separately.
Ending entry also enabled Lautner to replace the door with an aluminum frame with a temple glass that he wanted to use 35 years earlier. Friedberg and Rodman agreed, but they were on the expenditure of a glass sheet that stated. “I suggested two lists, because it’s much less,” says Rodman. “And he said,” If you’re going to do it, do three. Two looks like a compromise. Three appearance of intentional. “” In the end, they bite the bullet and followed the battle and followed Lautner’s original proposal.
When a couple had a child, the architect recruited himself to resistly on Baba. Until then, Lautner, sick with Emphysema, could not climb stairs to directly consider the problem. “But he didn’t need to,” said Rodman, “because it was in the head.” The elegant solution was a minimal invasive plexiglass gate, which, open or closed, was barely visible. After Lautner’s death, in 1994. His office has added what the Rodman calls “Staining” -Long plexiglass leaves, inserted behind a banquet that interferes with about two sides of the stairs – to prevent children from being diving on the edge.
In the coming years, Friedberg and Rodman made changes that preserve the original spirit as she maximized service, in the most famous in the base bedroom, where the architect Dale B. Cohen added the bookcase under the window and constructed alarm controls and intercoms. But except they wish for more countries, they are surprisingly regretting – a fun function, in Rodoman’s opinion, not so much from the way in the house, but the opposite. “I had a lot of growing up to live here,” he notices. “I was adolescent for the first thirty-thirty-five years of my life and I think my house taught me that I could grow up without giving up my feelings for whims or playfulness.”
Friedberg Marvels on the influence of architecture on her work, who deals with the theory of film. “There is something unique in life in a house that is all about light, shadows and construction of view,” she says. “It’s like a material paradigm of something very theoretical to live all the time. And something is deeply harmonized and comfortable with that.”
They both agree that the most important user of Lautner’s lasting alchemy is their eight-year-old son, Tristan. “Growing up in this house, where it was light and uncomplicated, I mean, you can’t have a seasonal affective disorder here,” says Friedberg. “I think it just produced a happy child.” It’s laughing. “I don’t think we did it.”
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