Desert Hot Springs Hotel by John Lautner. Complete overview and walkthrough

hello dear audience this time we're gonna visit the only hotel john lautner ever created the building is best to describe as a typical american motel designed in the style of mid-century modernism this makes the project a unique design in john lautner's career the hotel is located in desert hot springs not far from palm springs when the hotel was constructed in 1947 this small town was located next to a series of roads that lead through the desert to various other cities the commissioner of the hotel speculated that many car drivers wanted to stop here to spend the night before resuming their long ride through the desert with increasing car traffic in the 50s and 60s this hotel seemed to have a golden future ahead and the commissioner had dreams of making a large resort with many rooms and swimming pools it was a great idea but no one could foresee that only 10 years later the interstate 10 was constructed this very long highway that crosses the american continent went through palm springs but desert hot springs was skipped over while palm springs blossomed into a large city full of luxury resorts desert hot springs remained a small town isolated in the desert the hotel that was intended to be much larger never went further than just four rooms over the years the hotel went bankrupt many times and it had a lot of different owners and slowly fell into disrepair all in all it's a sad history but with a happy ending finally the hotels renovated in its full glory renamed as the lautner compound making it a pilgrimage site for hardcore john lauder fans so if you want to spend the night in an actually john lauder designed building you just have to reserve a hotel room otherwise check this video to take a look inside [Music] the hotel is surrounded by a wall that protects inhabitants against the strong winds and sandstorms of the desert on the compound are four buildings placed each contains one hotel suite with an individual garden these buildings are strictly separated from each other three hotel suites are placed in a length and one in width against the back of the three others there are four wooden doors in the concrete wall which allows the visitors to park their cars on the four individual carport in front of each cabin a small wooden door in the concrete wall makes it possible to walk into the courtyard when you walk through the wooden door you're entering a different world that feels like an oasis a place of rest and intimacy separated from the roughness of the desert each room has an individual roof that consists of one diagonal placed concrete clay this plate is supported by four diagonal iron arms which are painted bright red in color the plates are made of forced concrete with curricated iron in the middle with studs they are hung up at the underside of the arms the iron arms are supported by two iron pillars on both sides the concrete is placed against this construction at the beginning and at the end the pillars only support one concrete plate the two other pillars in the middle support two roof plates on both sides of the pillar john lonner choose for this design because the thickness of the concrete keeps the temperatures of the desert outside the diagonal position of the roof allows enough sunlight to enter and creates shadows at the same time the hotel is one of the earliest designs by john lautner and it is still heavily influenced by his mentoring teacher frank lloyd wright for instance the hotel shows some similarities with the drawing studio from taliesin west both designs have a diagonal roof with red supporting arms that are clearly visible the construction was designed to be built very cheaply and to be expanded easily in the future the original intention was to create a large resort that existed of multiple identical compounds but unfortunately this never became reality let's now take a look in one of the hotel suites the diagonal ceiling is larger than the room itself this leads to perspective outside this combined with the strong presence of sunlight makes the room look larger than it actually is the entire right wall of the hotel room is made out of glass this makes the garden part of the interior the cactuses and rocks create the feeling of living in the desert landscape yet the enclosement of the garden creates the feeling of privacy and intimacy the iron triangular contact points are placed between the pillar and the concrete roof this makes the roof to come free of the walls and creates a floating roof from the open space at the left side sunlight enters the room without this skylight the left side of the room would be very dark behind the wooden wall is a small kitchen the small bathroom is hidden behind a wall of mirrors these mirrors make the room look larger than actually is [Music] on this photo you can see the difference in the floor levels between the garden and the hotel room the rooms of the hotel are at ground level while the garden is placed on a higher level this creates extra shadow in a bedroom and makes it possible to look from the garden at the outside while it is impossible to look from the outside into the garden [Music] the garden is enclosed by wooden walls and has a sitting area because the roof is partially cantilevering the garden there's enough shadow to sit comfortably let's now take a look at the courtyard that is surrounding the four cabins there is a half circular sitting area a barbecue place a rock garden and finally there's an enclosed patho with a small swimming pool we end this video with a sunset of the desert [Music] this was your tour of john lautner's own hotel thank you for watching until next time good bye

Channel: John Lautner Architecture Videos

Views: 36,381

Keywords: bubbling wells resort, john lautner motel, john lautner hotel, desert hot psirngs motel, desert hot springs hotel

Id: 2dzcB9MLDD0

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021