English
Noun
- the region of the Earth's atmosphere (from 20 to 120 miles above the surface) in which photochemical reactions take place
User Contributed Dictionary
Extensive Definition
The Chemosphere, built by American
architect John Lautner
in 1960, is an innovative Modernist
residence in Los Angeles,
California.
The building stands on the San
Fernando Valley side of the Hollywood
Hills, just off of Mulholland
Drive. It is a one story octagon with around 2200 square feet
(200m2) of living space. Most distinctively, the house is perched
atop a concrete pole nearly thirty feet high and five feet in
diameter. This innovative design was Lautner's solution to a site
that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically
unbuildable. The house is reached by a funicular.
The lot had been given to a young aerospace
engineer by his father-in-law; despite his own limited means, the
engineer, Leonard Malin, was determined to live there. The
building, which the Encyclopædia
Britannica once called "the most modern home built in the
world," is admired both for the ingenuity of its solution to the
problem of the site and for its unique design. In 1976, the house's
second owner, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was stabbed to death in a robbery
by two men, who were convicted and sentenced to life in
prison.
Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet in
diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the post, the house
has survived earthquakes and heavy
rains.
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 significant alteration.
Because of its unique design it proved to be a difficult sell and
had sat on the market for most of its time as a rental property.
Since 2000, it has been the Los Angeles home of Benedikt
Taschen, of German book publisher company Taschen, who has
had the home restored; the only current issue with the home is the
higher cost of maintenance. The recent restoration by Taschen won
an award from the Los
Angeles Conservancy.
The building was first used in a dramatic film as
a futuristic residence in the 1964 ABC-TV program "The Outer
Limits: The Duplicate Man", based on a science fiction story by
American author Clifford
D. Simak. Exterior scenes for the television episode were shot
on location; a detailed sound-stage set of the house's interior was
built. It was also used in the film Body
Double. A set for a scene in Charlie's
Angels was inspired directly by the Chemosphere. A similar
building also appears in the video game
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas near the "VINEWOOD" sign. In an
episode of The
Simpsons, character Troy McClure
resides in a similar flying saucer-shaped home. Hosts on Current TV
appear in a set which is an exact replica of the interior of The
Chemosphere. The character Desolation
Jones in the comic of the same name lives in the
Chemosphere.
External links and references
chemosphere in German: Chemosphere
(Gebäude)