Still, "it was love at first sight," says the laconic German, wearing a red Muhammad Ali bathrobe as he shows off the place on a hazy morning. The Chemosphere is accessible only by a private funicular that ascends the hillside. A TV newscaster lived nearby in a Lautner-designed house. Still, "it was love at first sight," says the laconic German, wearing a red Muhammad Ali bathrobe as he shows off the place on a hazy morning. "It's pure nature, with all kinds of animals: skunks, bobcats, coyotes, deer. The house was named the Chemosphere for promotional purposes by the Chem- seal Corp. of America, which contributed materials. 1) Boeing 727-200 house in Hillsboro, Oregon This high altitude home was built by aviation enthusiast Bruce Campbell in 1999. Lautner perched the entire one-storyoctagon on a single 30-foot concrete column, leaving the natural surroundings untouched. "Today there are materials that weren't available then," Malin says. "Everybody loved Spanish, and then shabby chic came in." Hess points out that Lautner's embrace of Modernist innovation and organic forms made him a more interesting architect but also contributed to his obscurity during much of his career. [14] It appears in the end credits of the 2015 Disney fantasy film, Tomorrowland, starring George Clooney. In recent years, publisher Benedikt Taschen purchased the Chemosphere and restored it to its former glory. "It's the responsibility of the owner to preserve it for future generations," Taschen says, "because a house like this doesn't belong to one or two people: It belongs to mankind.". Lautner, despite his reputation as having a strong personality, worked hard to suit his clients and their inner lives. [12], The building was first used in a dramatic film as a futuristic residence in "The Duplicate Man", a 1964 episode of the ABC TV-program The Outer Limits, based on a science fiction story by American author Clifford D. Simak. It contains 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. "These Lautner houses are like custom-made clothes," Escher says, "so you really have to find the right tenant for them. He says the home's northern edge, which contains the bedroom and his office, is very quiet. ", Benedikt likens the house to an eagle's nest. You would not expect it from outside.". Landmark Houses: John Lautner's Chemosphere. Leonard Malin was a young aerospace engineer in late-1950s L.A. whose father-in-law had just given him a plot north of Mulholland Drive, near Laurel Canyon. Although Lautner for his designs had little to do with this trend, always tried to integrate the buildings with the environment, creating an organic flow between the interior and exterior, humanizing built spaces and respecting the environment. Fortunately, Taschen had the resources and respect for the Chemosphere's ingenuity to restore it to its original vision. Ehrlich bought the lot next door and had architects John Friedman and Alice Kimm design this new building, with a pool in between, making a compound with a great outdoor area. Chem Seal provided the experimental coatings and resins to put the house together and inspired the name Chemosphere. "Today there are materials that weren't available then," Malin says. Frank Gehry has said that as a student, he considered Lautner to be a god.". [11], The house forms part of a retrospective of Lautner's work which was shown at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles between August and October 2008. The building, which the Encyclopdia Britannica once called "the most modern home built in the world",[1] is admired both for the ingenuity of its solution to the problem of the site and for its unique octagonal design. John Phillips is asking $1.05 million for his striking two-bedroom home in Studio City. ", Hess finds the house fascinating partly because it was built for a couple and their four children. . Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. "Every day there is something not working," he says. During the 1950s and '60s, the starker, cooler Modernism of the Bauhaus and of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe reigned in intellectual circles, especially in Europe and on the East Coast. To get cable or Internet, they have to come 10 times. Designed in 1958, architect John Lautner's Chemosphere House perches atop a 29-foot concrete pole on a roughly 45 degree slope in California's . When John Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for. "That's something that's important to all our projects: We don't try to draw attention to a detail. The cost to build Chemosphere, US$140,000 (equivalent to $1.28 million in 2021), was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. [10] It was also included in a list of all-time top 10 houses in Los Angeles in a Los Angeles Times survey of experts in December 2008. Long a familiar sight in architectural magazines and books, it went before a new audience recently as the temporary home of the voyeuristic protagonist of the murder-mystery film Body Double. In fact, the house was the scene of a real murder eight years ago. In addition, we feature unusual hotels and restaurants. For the pillar concrete base is used, the holding arms are steel platform, like the compression ring which is joined laminated wooden beams making up the rest of the structure. "It's like having a vintage car -- a '55 Mercedes. 33 Chemosphere House Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 33 Chemosphere House Premium High Res Photos Browse 33 chemosphere house photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more photos and images. The Malins and their four children lived there until rising costs and the demise of the aerospace industry forced them to sell in 1972. (The couple were finalizing a divorce at the time of this article's publication.) Completed Pics Of Ron Tutors Beverly Park Mega Ma Love this new necklace at Cartier on Rodeo Drive. Most distinctively, the house is perched atop a 5-foot-wide (1.5m) concrete column nearly 30 feet (9m) high. Rocket Homes is a registered trademark licensed to Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC. ", "There was no market for that house," says Julie Jones, the Realtor in the sale, who had watched the place languish after she listed the house. Like a tree, the building sprouts from the hill. ", Escher, the preservation architect, considers Lautner "the missing link between the classic Modernism of the Case Study Houses and the work we now associate with Los Angeles -- the more expressive, more sculptural forms. She worried it might be difficult to live there. She said that besides limiting her trips out of the house because of the funicular, living there didn't alter her behavior. The land was leafy and overgrown, with extravagant views of the San Fernando Valley. The only consistent problem with the house, Taschen says, is that its technology often fails in subtle but frustrating ways. The mountain-to-mountain view, from Glendale to the west end of the San Fernando Valley, looks down on the roofs of the tallest office buildings in the East Valley and even on airplane and helicopter traffic. Engineer Leonard Malin's father-in-law gave Malin a sloping plot of land that seemed extremely inhospitable to any type of development. Midcentury houses "would sit and sit and sit -- you couldn't give 'em away. It's not the only contradiction the place contains. Angelika describes the place as having a spiritual impact, almost like a church. However counterintuitive the scheme, it was also one of very few imaginable that allowed the plot to be utilized. "And yet whenever that house is used in the movies, it's always a decadent bachelor pad," Hess says. Besides its two bedrooms, the house has a den, kitchen, two bathrooms and a large living room, with a fireplace in the center. Photos via mcmdaily.comJulius Shulman / Getty Archives, Your email address will not be published. Its a practically unbuildable hillside with no access from the top, Lautner said. Leonard Malin was a young aerospace engineer in late-1950s L.A. whose father-in-law had just given him a plot north of Mulholland Drive, near Laurel Canyon. They also tried to match what they thought Lautner would have chosen if he'd had access to contemporary workmanship and a larger budget: The original drawings, for instance, described a floor of random broken slate, but the day's technology would not allow the stone to be cut thinly enough to keep from destabilizing the house. "It was for sale for so long," says Taschen, "that it was even in a 'Simpsons' episode: a house with a for-sale sign. Landmark House: John Lautner's Chemosphere - Los A Should You Pay Your Mortgage Bi-Weekly? Landmark Houses: John Lautner's Chemosphere. The lowest bid from a general contractor in 1957 was $525,000, so I quit work for 18 months and built it myself with John de la Vaux for $140,000. Chemosphere was characteristically Los Angeles of that time because "it didn't have to look like a house," says Hess. The homes don't force their inhabitants into an ant farm's existence the way some houses do. (Lautner originally wanted to call the house Chapiteau. ", The fate seemed unjust for a structure the Encyclopedia Britannica had judged "the most modern home built in the world," and which had appeared in Brian De Palma's "Body Double." "Draw it up," he told his assistant Guy Zebert. Rather, he said, it was an effort to deal with an architectural problem, the 45-degree slope of the lot, which was a gift to the owner because it appeared to be worthless. "I bought it right away -- as fast as possible," says Taschen. You feel disconnected from the planet and completely free and happy.". It's like a movie where you add a scene of someone with a mobile phone in 1958, or a style of shirt or car that wouldn't have existed until years later. Everything is much more complicated. The weight of the 31-ton pad, and the earth compacted above it, hold the house up, like a barbell with one end buried in the earth. If he was a banker, he would have insisted on a colonial house on a bulldozed lot. Lautner, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright who sometimes designs swimming pools that wander through the living room or homes built around trees or rocks, is not the sort of architect who does colonial houses on bulldozed cuts. Wright was one of the founders of that approach to Modernism, and Lautner brought it to Southern California. Lautner deliberately angled the house pod back from the lower edge of the wraparound windows, he said, so that those inside would not be able to see anything beneath them, to emphasize the feeling that they were floating over the hill. John Lautners ChemospherePhoto by evdropkick/Flickr. The Chemosphere is a modernist house in Los Angeles, California, designed by John Lautner in 1960. Despite its seemingly fragile appearance has withstood several earthquakes and torrential rains. "From the outside it looks like a spaceship which you cannot enter," Angelika Taschen says from Berlin, where she now lives. 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