From Within: The Architecture of Helena Arahuete, curated by Silvia Perea, ran from September 23 to December 17, 2023, at the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Say you were a Los Angeles homeowner who recently availed yourself of an existing John Lautner in need of repair, or maybe a flush Angeleno with a stratospheric plot of land that you think cries out for a Lautner-esque touch and, after some cursory googling, you learn that the man has been dead for thirty years. Depending on the configuration of your search terms, Google might turn up nothing about the architecture office that continues to fly the Lautner flag, but if it does turn up something, you will notice another name in the results field—that of Helena Arahuete. From there, it won’t take much to realize that Arahuete, a Belgian who was raised and educated in Argentina before moving to LA in 1971, is not only John Lautner’s former right-hand architect, but as much his heir and successor as anyone ever could be.
Here is where I conf…