John Lautner.

'Fashion', for John Lautner as for George Bernard Shaw, was 'nothing but an induced epidemic.' The best-known of Frank Lloyd Wright's pupils, Lautner was a big man, built like a bear, but with a warm and friendly handshake. Equally big is this overview of his life, something between an autobiography and a monograph, and full of big lettering, big ideas and big sentiments. It is sad that Lautner should have died in October 1994, so dose to its publication.

Born in northern Michigan to academic and artistic parents, Lautner joined the Taliesin Fellowship (to whom, among others, this book is dedicated) in 1933. There he found the holistic philosophy complemented his rural upbringing. Had he gone to architecture school, he believes, he never would have lasted. For Wright he laid the stones at Taliesin West, modelled Broadacre City, detailed and supervised 'Wingspread', and came to Los Angeles in 1937 to build the Sturges House. There he stayed.

Lautner's first house, built by himself for his small family in 1940, was quite Wrightian, as were the next few. But by 1947, half a dozen buildings later, an independent identity becomes clear. This is best seen in his use of structure, something which could characterise a Lautner, from the memorable single column of the Chemosphere (Hollywood, 1960) to the vast, oversailing roofs of the Bob Hope House (Palm Springs, 1979), originally conceived with Felix Candela.

Yet it is through the intangibles - life, heart, soul, spirit, freedom - that Lautner's architecture should be understood. These values, promoted by his parents and given rein by Wright, are printed in thumping big letters across the pages of this heavily illustrated book. And you detect his frustration: 'Today, superficiality reigns supreme'.

NEIL JACKSON