The DeVos Art Museum at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, received a number of thank you cards from classes of local school children who visited the museum to see the John Lautner exhibit at the end of last year. Copies of the thank yous are being scanned. In the meantime, Karol Lautner Peterson photographed several in a recent visit.
You can see the thank you notes here:
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| DeVos Thank yous |
A segment of yesterday’s Weekend Edition on National Public Radio focused on John Lautner. The piece brings together Lautner’s childhood experiences and his work, and offers a sense of what it is like to live in a Lautner home.
The information is not yet on the NPR website but after the show you should be able to find the segment on this page.
Thanks to Edward Lifson, Architecture Writer, for his work on this project.
The exhibit on John Lautner at the DeVos Museum of Art in Marquette, Michigan, will close November 13. The exhibit will be open late Saturday, and will offer a closing celebration including a concert by the Terminal Orchestra.
The Michigan Museums Association has awarded the exhibit at the DeVos as well as its sister exhibit at the Marquette Regional History Center its “Most Awesome Experience” award! If you have a chance to see the two museum exhibits, one which features the work of John Lautner and the other of which delves into his family background and life in the Upper Peninsula, do it now! The history exhibit will extend into January of next year, so there is more time for that one.
Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste, two Dutch architects, who have made a name for themselves in their commitment to see every Lautner building extant, spoke at Northern Michigan University about John Lautner and their pursuit on September 18, 2011. You can listen to the whole lecture here:
Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste speak at UNITED conference
Bette Jane Cohen, Producer of The Spirit in Architecture: John Lautner, spoke at the University on September 30, 2011, following a screening of the film. You will soon be able to see her lecture as well.
See information on the DeVos exhibit on Lautner and related events at the museum’s website.
Interlochen Public Radio, a service of Interlochen Center for the Arts, broadcasts a weekly show called “Points North”, featuring articles of interest particularly to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. On September 8, the broadcast was about John Lautner. The host noted the opening of the exhibits in Marquette and spoke with Nicholas Olsberg about Lautner.
Olsberg, former Director of the Canadian Center for Architecture, was co-curator of the exhibition at the Hammer museum on Lautner (2008) and co-wrote the exhibit’s catalog.
You can listen to the interview on the IPR site.
The Foundation and the Los Angeles Conservancy are pleased to announce details of the long-awaited panel discussion on preservation. On October 9, five panelists will discuss their experiences with renovating or restoring Lautner homes.
Where: Wilshire Christian Church Fellowship Hall (Wilshire and Normandie).
When: 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
How much: $15 general public, $10 members of either organization
Who: The panelists are:
The DeVos Art Museum in Marquette, Michigan sponsored a special lecture on John Lautner by Frank Escher on September 2, 2011. Now the entire lecture is available online, complete with slides. (To watch and listen, your browser needs to run an application called “Silverlight”, by Microsoft. If your browser does not have it you should get a notice with a link to where it can be downloaded. It works with both Windows and Apple computers.)
The lecture can be found at this location.
Both new exhibits on John Lautner, already open in Marquette, Michigan, will host a formal opening reception Friday, September 2, 2011. Frank Escher, editor of the monograph John Lautner, Architect, will speak on Lautner at 5:00 p.m., and the DeVos art museum’s reception will follow at 6:00 p.m. The reception at the Marquette Regional History Center begins at 7:00 p.m. (so you can go to everything if you want!).
See this article on the exhibits for more information on the opening reception and all related events.
Part of the 2011 celebration of John Lautner’s 100th birthday, two new exhibits on John Lautner opened Friday, August 19, 2011, in Lautner’s home town, Marquette, Michigan. Both go by the same name: John Lautner: A Life in Architecture, but are otherwise very different.
The exhibit at the DeVos Art Museum features photographs, models, video, magazine articles, and books about Lautner’s work. Projects featured are the Chemosphere, Carling residence, Sheats-Goldstein residence, Marbrisa, Harpel 2 (Alaska), Hatherall residence, Concannon residence, and the Garcia residence. A new model of the Concannon residence (demolished several years ago) was created by a class at the Artez Academy of Architecture at Arnhem (the Netherlands).
The exhibit at the Marquette Regional History Center focuses on the influences on Lautner, particularly his parents and early adult life. This exhibit features a 12-minute film of John and Mary Lautner at Taliesin, many paintings by Lautner’s mother Vida, photographs and artifacts from Lautner’s early life.
Both exhibits will have opening receptions on September 2, following a lecture by Frank Escher. Additional events include a lecture by Dutch architects Jan-Richard Kikkert and Tycho Saariste on September 18 and the screening of The Spirit in Architecture, Visual Acoustics, and Infinite Space in September, October, and November. Visit the art museum’s website for more information on these events.
The DeVos exhibit will close on November 13, 2011. The History Center exhibit closes on January 7, 2012.
Photographs by D. Scott Stobbelaar