The only consistent problem with the house, Taschen says, is that its technology often fails in subtle but frustrating ways. "I think the hardest thing was developing an intellectual strategy for how to deal with it," Escher says, calling the task, "a combination of research into history and technology, and to some degree into Lautner's psychology. Drake's house in Toronto Most expensive rapper houses Rick Ross house in Atlanta [1] Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. or anything very negative, anything that would do damage to the character of the house.. "But if you go inside, it feels very cozy very Zen and calming. Real Estate Market Reports . ; It is also the house of villain Eric Knox in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels, which was directly inspired by the Chemosphere. Be the First to Watch the Real Housewives of Bever My first article at the "Beverly Hills Curator" fo Neiman Marcus and Beverly Hills Celebrate Fred Hay Orson Welles' Grand Hollywood Hills Home Hits the Neiman Marcus and Beverly Hills Celebrate the Lege Sellers Guide to Understanding Todays Buyer | Lo American Idol's Beverly Hills mansion sold to the Mastro's is so old school with the bathroom attend Mastro's in Beverly Hills, CA 90210 has THE best b An iconic pieces of Architecture in Beverly Hills, Georgio Armani boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Opulent 10,000 Square Foot Apartment In Paris - Th How to Attract What You Want. Malin convinced a handful of companies to help finance his construction project in exchange for a little product placement. "It was an architecture newly defined. (The couple were finalizing a divorce at the time of this article's publication.) Japans plummeting university enrollment forecasts what could be ahead for the U.S. Canadian broadcaster halts Twitter use after being labeled government-funded media, Opinion: Why the Trump indictment isnt as legally dubious as many claimed, Wall Street Journal reporters appeal for release from Russian jail is denied, The actor, the hairstylist and the eye surgeon: Drugs and death in a Malibu beach house, Have guests in town? "That's something that's important to all our projects: We don't try to draw attention to a detail. "The West would not be possible without technology: Water, electricity, everything that it took to overcome dryness and distance was dependent in some form on technology. My wife is always worried about the baby falling down that slope. He said the house was named the Chemosphere for promotional purposes by the Chem-seal Corp. of America, which contributed material used in the roof coating and other parts of the house. Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. Malin personally, along with three workers, was responsible for the construction that lasted 18 months. "So they ignored him," says Hess, "or put him in the category of undisciplined, far-out, do-whatever-you-want California architecture. His firm, which he runs with partner Ravi GuneWardena, had been partly inspired by classic California Modernism, and here he could delve into a great Modernist's original conception. 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 . Due to the low budget available to the owner sought sponsors to carry out the worlds most modern home as he called the Encyclopedia Britannica of the time. Youd think youd get used to the view, but I never have, Phillips said. Mid-Century Home 2019, nous utilisons les cookies afin de personnaliser le contenu et les publicits, de fournir des fonctionnalits pour les rseaux sociaux et analyser notre traffic. When they ran short of funds after spending about $93,000, he said, the houses startling appearance, with its already apparent appeal to advertisers, attracted financial help to finish it. "With this house he found and expressed this almost religious spirit with a perfect architectural language in general, but also in detail. The Malins and their four children lived there until rising costs and the demise of the aerospace industry forced them to sell in 1972. [2], The Chemosphere was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2004. The roof deck joints were sealed with epoxy to prevent leaks and get isolation. 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. When Benedikt Taschen, a globe-trotting publisher of stylish art books, and his then-wife first laid eyes on Chemosphere in 1997, the iconic Los Angeles house had seen better days. Rocket Homes is a registered trademark licensed to Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC. After the car is parked a private furnicular, or an inclined railway, ascends up the slope and lands at a narrow bridge which spans from the ground to the entrance near the kitchen. One side of the house is public, with a small kitchen and blended living and dining rooms including built-in couches below glass windows. Alan Hess, an architectural historian and author of "The Architecture of John Lautner," considers Chemosphere as perfect an expression of Southland culture as Greene & Greene's Gamble House, Charles and Ray Eames' Case Study house and the finest work of Neutra and R.M. It's warm and human, not a cold place. By 2004, the Chemosphere was officially declared a historical monument. There are constant requests to use the house in films and commercials, Phillips said, but he rejects almost all of them. For Sale in LA For Rent in LA . Lautner perched the entire one-storyoctagon on a single 30-foot concrete column, leaving the natural surroundings untouched. "But if you go inside, it feels very cozy very Zen and calming. "The maintenance is 10 times higher than in any other building. It's not the only contradiction the place contains. 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. It should disappear." The house is one of the best-known works of John Lautner, a Hollywood architect renowned for his unique designs and stubbornly individualistic personality. Its regarded as an example of Lautners way of dealing with a difficult lot and also as a typical example of a far-out, L.A. way of designing a house, said Alson Clark, director of USCs Art and Architecture Library. He presented Lautner with his problem lot and John thought he could foist this design on me because I was stupid enough to build it, Malin joked. Lautner'sfuturistic "flying saucer" quickly caught the eyes of the Hollywood industry and the house has since appeared in filmsincluding Body Double and Charlie's Angels. 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. People would want to see the view, and that was about it. The transition to the outside is made through the edge detail. The Zestimate for this house is $2,033,400, which has increased by $13,100 in the last 30 days. The modern icon floats above the city and was named one of the all time top ten houses in Los Angeles. By . . "Organic Modernism was just as modern in its use of materials," Hess says, "but it had a different sense of space, which was flowing. The house is the product of a fortuitous union of architect, client, time and place. Le Corbusier called his homes "machines for living in," and sometimes they felt that way, with their narrow hallways and rigidly prescribed paths. The Chemosphere has been featured in numerous TV shows and films. The outside shell covers about 25,000 square feet. "These Lautner houses are like custom-made clothes," Escher says, "so you really have to find the right tenant for them. Taschen was perfect for the house -- he immediately grasped what the house was about, and he was entirely open to our ideas for the place, like ripping out the glass and commissioning pieces by artists.". The interior is divided into several designated spaces. The only catch: At roughly 45 degrees, the slope was all but unbuildable. In the 1973 Sylmar quake, the house waved around about 2 1/2-feet on each side, but the only damage was a broken glass that fell off a counter, said Malin, who lived there at the time. The house, nicknamed the "Chemosphere" hovers 30 feet over the city of Los Angeles resembling a UFO aircraft. The house's private half includes a master bedroom with bathroom, small storage and laundry rooms, an office made of two children's bedrooms, and an additional bathroom. Other architects and designers built upon Fuller's ideas to create a variety of dome-shaped dwellings. Fig & Olive. Wright was one of the founders of that approach to Modernism, and Lautner brought it to Southern California. A wave movement, which is what an earthquake is, cracks up a conventional house at the corners.. Raised up on a single central pillar reminds her figure some water tanks, watchtowers or any communication tower. "From the outside it looks like a spaceship which you cannot enter," Angelika Taschen says from Berlin, where she now lives. This edge zone, while accommodating storage, a seat and at one point a small terrace, has also a structural function. "It was for sale for so long," says Taschen, "that it was even in a 'Simpsons' episode: a house with a for-sale sign. Engineer Leonard Malin's father-in-law gave Malin a sloping plot of land that seemed extremely inhospitable to any type of development. It's hard not to see the house, which sits on a 29-foot-high, 5-foot-wide concrete column over a long-considered-unbuildable Hollywood Hills site, as a hovering flying saucer or a prototype for the 23rd century architecture of "The Jetsons.". This innovative design was Lautner's solution to a site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically unbuildable. The bequest, to be announced at a news conference at the house Wednesday afternoon, includes an endowment of $17 million for a maintenance fund, as well as a so-called skyspace artwork by James. Schindler. "It's pure nature, with all kinds of animals: skunks, bobcats, coyotes, deer. "Always changing.". I dont think anyone understands good architecture. "The place is much better than when I was in there -- and it's in keeping with Lautner's vision. One drawback to living in a widely publicized work of art, however, is that architects, architectural students and the just plain curious from around the world want to examine it, he said. The perimeter of the house is lined with windows to provide stunning views of the surroundings. It could take on its own brand-new shape. It was featured in last years landmarks calendar by the Los Angeles Conservancy and in books including Architecture of Los Angeles and A Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles and Southern California.. In 1960, John Lautner's "Chemosphere" house in Los Angeles, an octagonal residence that sits on a concrete column, was considered the epitome of modern design. "I have to give Benedikt credit for seeing past the disrepair and sad state the house had fallen into," he says. "I think the hardest thing was developing an intellectual strategy for how to deal with it," Escher says, calling the task, "a combination of research into history and technology, and to some degree into Lautner's psychology. Today, Chemosphere is furnished sparely with clean-lined pieces including Eames chairs and a coffee table and an oval Florence Knoll dining room table. It had been rented out for 10 to 12 years; it was like the ultimate party house. Although flying saucers were in fashion when it was designed in the late 1950s, that had nothing to do with the design, according to the architect. It had been rented out for 10 to 12 years; it was like the ultimate party house. The Chemosphere was first used as a futuristic residence in The Duplicate Man, a 1964 episode of the ABC TV-program The Outer Limits. He simply wanted a structure that would remain sturdy at a steep angle. The Malin residence remains one of the state of Californias most eccentric buildings. Today, the place is serene and airy, with a simple, light-wood openness that suggests midcentury Scandinavian crossed with a ski chalet, and views that are pure Southern California. 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. The restoration team removed layers of paint, paneled the walls with the same shade of ash wood used for the original built-in couches and cabinets (some of which needed repair or restoration), and replaced the fixed-paneled windows with frameless glass. GuneWardena compares the process to "pruning a garden, to reveal the clarity of the structure.". But the 1960 house is very much a work of its time and place. It could take on its own brand-new shape. The house has an overpowering personality, said the current owner, John Phillips, an attorney active in liberal causes who has lived there for eight years. In its construction Chem Seal Corporation tested the new chemicals and resins such as roofing materials. ", In Escher's first meeting with Taschen, the restoration architect pointed out which pieces were original, which needed to be replaced, and which details deserved restoration. She said that besides limiting her trips out of the house because of the funicular, living there didn't alter her behavior. ", Hess finds the house fascinating partly because it was built for a couple and their four children. [2] The original decoration was provided by John H. Smith, the first African American admitted to the National Society of Interior Designers. The plot may have remained empty had Malin not approached Lautner, whose work he knew from a nearby house. Required fields are marked *. What filled in when it came time to film New Moon? The bottom perimeter fence surrounding the house is also a component of the structure. Your email address will not be published. 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. Despite being more compact than many new single-family houses, it has most of the essential elements. He made an exception for Body Double because director Brian De Palma was very persuasive, and they offered me a lot of money--$30,000 for four days, and its all tax free because of the IRS code that you dont pay taxes on rental income of less than 14 days., He said he agreed only on condition that the movie makers not only treat the house well, but that the house not be the scene of any graphic sex or violence . Its better to have one point than to have four points moving different directions in a quake, Lautner said. The sleek, octagonal design, arguably the boldest work by the singular architect John Lautner, is considered a masterpiece of California Modernism and is beloved by cultists of midcentury design. "I bought it right away -- as fast as possible," says Taschen. [1] Because of its unique design it proved to be a difficult sell and sat on the market for most of its time as a rental property.[1]. The Chemosphere is accessible only by a private funicular that ascends the hillside. He canceled plans for a guesthouse designed by Rem Koolhaas at Chemosphere's base because he feared it would visually compete with the main house. How much is the chemosphere worth? The land was leafy and overgrown, with extravagant views of the San Fernando Valley. He briefly attended the University of Michigan and in 1933, he graduated from Northern Michigan University in English and began a six-year job with Frank Lloyd Wright in the first class of Taliesin Fellows at Spring Green WI. [15], Location of Chemosphere in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Landmark Houses: John Lautner's Chemosphere, "From California Design to Junk Art | Unframed", "Leonard Jay Malin Obituary (1931 - 2021) Los Angeles Times", Party at the Chemosphere: The Flying Saucer House Soars Again, "John Lautner, 'Technologist' Architect, Dies at 83", "Youth Convicted of Slaying and Robbing Doctor", "Bonding Humanity and Landscape in a Perfect Circle", "Troy McClure's hilltop bachelor pad, The Simpsons", "Going Back to the Future for 'Tomorrowland,' From Disney", John Lautner Foundation page on Chemosphere with photographs and sketches, Chemosphere on Google Earth Community page, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chemosphere&oldid=1142375271, This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 01:46. Angelika describes the place as having a spiritual impact, almost like a church. Unlike a lot of the more didactic and theory-driven homes of Modernists from Le Corbusier to Philip Johnson, it's actually pleasant, most of the time, to live inside a Lautner. He was a mechanical engineer at the time he asked Lautner to design the house, Malin said, with no connection to aviation or aerospace. In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower turned over the presidency to John Kennedy, gasoline was 35 cents a gallon, computers were as big as trucks and the Chemosphere House was named by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the most modern home built in the world.. Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet (6m) in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the column, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. These days, now that Taschen has an office in Hollywood and a bookstore in Beverly Hills, the place has reverted to being, mostly, a house for him and fiancee Lauren Wiener. The Malin Residence or Chemosphere House, 1960, Designed by John Lautner. He canceled plans for a guesthouse designed by Rem Koolhaas at Chemosphere's base because he feared it would visually compete with the main house. Chemosphere 7776 Torreyson Dr., Los Angeles, CA Next Up In John Lautner John Lautner's historic Silver Lake home for sale for first time in four decades John Lautner's sexy Wolff Residence back. You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Through him, Malin met others who lived in the distinctive houses created by Lautner and I decided that was the man I wanted to design my house, he said. Chemosphere 7776 Torreyson Dr., Los Angeles, CA . Although the Chemosphere spent much of the 90s being neglected as a rental, Benedikt Taschen, of the German publishing house Taschen, bought it in 1998 and invested in a costly restoration, which saw the city of Los Angeles declaring the residence a historic-cultural monument, admired for both the ingenuity of its solution to the difficult plot of land and its futuristic . If you make tiny changes that don't fit the integrity of the house, you destroy it. By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, Tours of more than 100 Southern California homes, Beverly Hills Real Estate-Beverly Hills Homes For Sale, Christophe Choo Real Estate Group on Facebook. The sleek, octagonal design, arguably the boldest work by the singular architect John Lautner, is considered a masterpiece of California Modernism and is beloved by cultists of midcentury design. ", In fact, during much of that decade, the place had been on the market. (The house is reached by a funicular.). The forcefulness was balanced with the architects' own "sensitive and careful" respect for Lautner's intentions: The goal was to undo the damage previous tenants had exacted, and to simplify. [6][7][8], By 1997, the interior had become run down; for over 10 years it had been rented out and used for parties and as a result the interior finishes had undergone major and anachronistic alteration. 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