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From time to time, Lautner-designed buildings face challenges. They may be
threatened with demolition or may be in search of a new use. This section provides
information on these buildings and on efforts in their behalf.
Please let us know if you are aware of Lautner buildings in danger of demolition
or problematic alterations.
Goldstein Office:
JOHN LAUTNER CREATION FOUND A HOME   
Update: The Goldstein office has
been accepted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It will be installed
as a working office in LACMA West, the historic May Co. building.
Read below for the history. Start at the bottom. view application for monument status photographs by Alan Weinstein, arcaid
UPDATE: Message from the Vice-President of the JLF
The John Lautner Foundation received wonderful
news just prior to Thanksgiving. The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage
Commission voted
unanimously to extend Historic-Cultural Monument status to the Goldstein
Office, effectively saving it from imminent destruction. In the final
hearing, with considerable time devoted to the pros and cons of preserving
this rare office space in a high-rise, the Commission (after
voting) requested
James Goldstein to stand and be acknowledged for commissioning John
Lautner and building the office.
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| Our efforts to preserve the Goldstein
Office, though quite involved and complex, were fruitful. The Lautner Foundation
involved the
Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission by submitting for Monument status,
which will protect a threatened cultural monument for up to one year, after
which the owner of the building can have the issue re-addressed. While
this approach to preserving buildings or space buys time, it needs support
not only from the Commission but finally from the City Council, especially
the Councilmember whose district it is in.
We did not have this needed support due to the unique nature of this
Lautner project: its being an interior office space introduced new issues
and hurdles for its preservation. So when the Foundation's proposal of
incorporating the office intact into the redesign of the building's 20th
floor for a single tenant was rejected by the new tenant and the building
owner, an intense period of rethinking and negotiation ensued. The building
owner at 10100 Santa Monica Boulevard ultimately proposed sponsoring
the careful dismantling of the 850 square foot office suite
and storing it safely until next May. We have begun the process of
finding a new location for the office, hopefully where the public can
readily
visit this unique office environment and be exposed to John Lautner's
genius. The disassembly and restoration concept was embodied in the Commission's
decision, which now moves on for final adoption by the Los Angeles City
Council. Although we do not foresee any problems with the Council's adoption
of Historic-Cultural status, we encourage your attendance and support.
It will be an exciting moment at Wednesday's meeting when the Council
votes on the motion to include the Goldstein office on the City's Historic-Cultural
Monuments list. With the Goldstein Office a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural
Monument, additional clout accrues to our project of finding a new home
for it. Here are the times and locations for the final hearings next week: 1. Hearing at PLUM (Planning Land Use Management committee.)
December 13th, Tuesday 1:00pm
Room 350, City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles. 2. Hearing at Los Angeles City Council
December 14th,
Wednesday 10:00am
Room 340, City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles. The Foundation would like to take this opportunity to thank all involved
in the effort to preserve the Goldstein Office. We direct special thanks
to James Goldstein who commissioned and built this great architectural
work which has now been saved from being destroyed. We look forward to seeing some of you at the upcoming hearings. Thank you for your past and future support. Best regards,
-- Christopher Carr
Vice President
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PRESS RELEASE
Date: September 8, 2005
For Release: Immediately
Contact: Christopher Carr (323) 668-2225
City of Los Angeles Cultural-Heritage Commission takes Architect John Lautner's
Goldstein Office in Century City under consideration for City Cultural-Heritage
Monument status at Wednesday, September 7, 2005 Hearing.
The 850 square foot office space John Lautner designed for James Goldstein
on the 20th Floor of the 10100 Santa Monica Blvd. building is the only remaining
pristine commercial work designed by Lautner. The Commission will tour the
site and make a final decision regarding monument status in October.
Goldstein's lease expires at the end of September, and the law firm of Loeb & Loeb
plans to gut the entire floor in preparing to add the floor to their existing
three floors within the building. The challenge is for Loeb & Loeb and
the building owner to incorporate the culturally significant space as a conference
room on that floor.
It is essential to preserve the work of one of America's great architects,
an apprentice of Frank Lloyd Wright, who, using Wright's principals of
organic architecture, established his own powerful expressive architecture
integrating
nature, space, according to Duncan Nicholson, spokesperson for The John
Lautner Foundation. Author Michael Webb, after visiting the office, said, "I know and love
the best of Lautner's architecture and this is a signature work in impeccable
condition. The rectangular box is completely transformed by a folded roof
plane of wood, and folded wall planes of brushed copper, glass and black
slate. It's a unique habitable sculpture."
The John Lautner Foundation, in filing the application for city Cultural-Heritage
Monument status, will continue to try to educate the new tenant and building
owners of the importance of keeping intact this work of John Lautner's, a
masterpiece of the 20th Century, rather then destroying it. |
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