Even in Southern California, where dazzling homes dot the landscape in jaw-dropping numbers, Chemosphere stands out. Resting atop a 30-foot concrete pole, this adventurous abode resembles a flying saucer that has come in for a landing on a hillside off Mulholland Drive in the San Fernando Valley.

The house, designed by architect John Lautner and built in 1960, is one of several structures re-examined in the retrospective "Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner." The show is up through Oct. 12 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Lautner, who died in 1984, was "an iconic but slightly misunderstood figure in architecture history," Hammer director Ann Philbin said.

Critics often were unkind to his works, knocking Chemosphere for its Space Age imagery and dismissing many of his other architectural creations as garish and gaudy.

Co-curators Nicholas Olsberg and Frank Escher, who have been working on the exhibition for four years, have a different take on his work. They hope to turn negative opinions about Lautner around and introduce his ideas to a new generation.

The exhibition's layout was as important as its content, according to Escher. There are few photographs, replaced instead by Lautner's drawings, which sit among several large-scale models. Several clips from an upcoming documentary are projected on the walls.

"This allows the viewer to be able to look up from the drawing toward the horizon and see the beautiful moving images, so that it feels as though you are in a Lautner house, Escher said.

During his career, Lautner concentrated on designing private homes, which gave him the freedom to veer away — far away — from architectural trends that dominated the commercial market.

While Lautner's work is often labeled futuristic, Olsberg and Escher argue that Lautner's desire was to fully integrate a structure into its natural landscape, to the point where they seem to fit as one unit.

The Pearlman Cabin, located in the San Jacinto Mountains, was built in 1957. The glass walls of the house are framed by the trees, as if the home grew organically from the landscape.

The cabin was not Lautner's first. Growing up in Marquette, Mich., he helped his parents build a retreat that overlooked Lake Superior. Later, he became an apprentice for Frank Lloyd Wright, before striking out on his own in 1939. Lautner's first solo project in Los Angeles was a family house on a steep slope in the Silver Lake neighborhood.

"The angularity of the house was due not only to the lot lines, but also to my desire for warmth, casualness, and continuity contributing to a greater sense of space," Lautner wrote about his home.

Besides Chemosphere, the architect's most recognizable building is Elrod House in Palm Springs, which was built in 1968. Used in the James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever," the home is highlighted by the cone-shaped roof and its wall of glass, steel and concrete that opens up to the vast desert.

In a 1969 article for the magazine Palm Springs Life, Pat Phillips Oliver wrote, "Optimum individuality is the keynote of a stunning and boldly conceived house that nestles massively like an extension of nature in the excavated rock of a splintered desert ridge at the southern tip of Palm Springs. The impact of design is immediate and dynamic, and there is a spectacular fusion of interiors and dramatic outdoor surroundings, accented by curve-swept walls, a gigantic expanse of windows set without the interruption of mullions, and clerestories that radiate down a concrete dome that spans the 60-foot living room and crowns a magnificent desert view. "

Even if Lautner disliked the press, as Hammer director Philbin said, perhaps he enjoyed Oliver's description. Though the exhibition shows dramatic changes in his design aesthetic, his desire to honor natural space never wavered.

Later in his career, he wrote, "A building might be shaped to dissolve its confines entirely."

Perhaps he never fully achieved that goal, but Lautner's work continues to fascinate. And, as the years tick by, thanks to exhibits like "Heaven and Earth, his reputation continues to build. As an architect, he would no doubt be proud of that.

— E-mail freelance columnist Jeff Favre at jjfavre@yahoo.com.