With and Without Walls

CONTENTS

Foreword 8 Introduction 10

Chapter 1 20 A Pedagogy of Progress Chapter 2 62 An Institution in Process Chapter 3 112 Establishing Identity Chapter 4 162 An Emerging LA School Chapter 5 188 An Alternative to Postmodernism Chapter 6 208 Forging New Directions Chapter 7 242 Changes in Leadership

Lessons Learned 262 Image Credits 268 Acknowledgments 270

FOREWORD

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Foreword

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The school-without-walls approach was something I grew up with. The public elementary school I attended, also founded in 1972, used the motto, “We build bridges instead of walls.” There were no classrooms or letter grades, and K–6 students were organized into four “colonies” where students engaged their education through an individualized learning model to advance through the curriculum. My first experience with SCI-Arc occurred in 2004 when I was a prospective student deciding on a professional graduate architecture program. When I walked into the school on 960 East Third Street, I knew immediately I wanted to be there because of the atmosphere of the place. There was a vitality and an attitude that was creative and free. Students were skateboarding in the building between seminar rooms and studio spaces, some had dogs, and in the “thesis pit” there was a two-story desk with a bed underneath. It was clear this school was different, and special. At that time, I could have never imagined I would eventually write a book on a period of the school’s history, but, at the same time, that first encounter sparked a deep curiosity in me from two divergent feelings: comfort and possibility. Years later, my anecdotal understanding of SCI-Arc’s prevailing mythos of rebellion led me to research the history of the school where I decided to focus on its origins and progress through Ray Kappe’s directorship, to better understand the intellectual foundations from a college-without-walls approach and how the school contributed to architectural progress. What I came to understand was how SCI-Arc was defined by the people that were there, the unique power of the director, a faculty largely engaged in professional practice, and a student body receptive to an unconventional academic environment. The eclectic microcosm of disciplined looseness that characterized SCIArc not only invigorated the institution as forward thinking and exciting but also created challenges and controversies. The school’s institutional identity, perhaps due to its relatively small size, or perhaps due to it being focused within a singular field, utilized an agile pedagogical framework that could change quickly and adapt. After having taught at SCI-Arc during a one-year fellowship, the school revealed to me what was most exceptional—the students, who, by and large, bring with them a spirit of experimentation and openness that seeks to unsettle the field as much as they participate in its definitions. Writing this book deepened my conviction to think carefully and creatively about the education of architects. The hope for readers is that they can use this work to reflect on the past to better understand the present, with knowledge that leads to a future that challenges boundaries, pursues freedoms, and exceeds conventions.

INTRODUCTION

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Figure 0.01 SCI-Arc exterior, 1800 Berkeley Street, from 1976 SCI-Arc Catalog.

Introduction

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With and Without Walls unfolds the premise under which the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) was created—as an alternative model for architectural education. The book focuses on SCI-Arc’s early years under the leadership of architect Ray Kappe, its first director, and shows how a new architecture school emerged in the 1970s following the social, cultural, and ecological idealism of the 1960s, and how it evolved through the 1980s. By questioning conventional architectural practice and architecture from within, and by providing freedom through selfstudy, SCI-Arc connected its form of education to issues grounded in everyday life and practice. Through this pedagogical approach that empowered experimentation, new forms of both architects and architecture could emerge [Figure 0.01]. Extensive primary source materials support this history, including textual and visual documentation of that period from SCI-Arc’s archive, the Ray Kappe papers at the Getty Research Institute, articles from the Los Angeles Times, and correspondences and interviews with Ray Kappe and SCI-Arc faculty. These materials are also connected to contemporaneous and recent secondary sources by architects, historians, and theorists from exhibitions and publications. The research shows how the “college-without-walls” concept, a variation on the popular 1970s “school-without-walls” concept, would be played out as a model for the education of architects. The principles of openness and flexibility engendered within a school utilizing a college-without-walls approach created conditions for productive experimentation in early SCI-Arc that integrated the school within Los Angeles and connected a flexible pedagogy with professional design issues. This was demonstrated in examples that included the school’s adaptive reuse of its first building, approaches to environmental design, reconciliation of a Los Angeles postmodern style, and the fluidity of approaches observed in faculty and student work. However, the institutional freedoms also created challenges over the operation of the school, instigating the creative and sometimes reactionary resolution of those challenges, embodying a reflective and responsive approach to design taught at SCI-Arc. In this way, SCIArc, under its first director, Ray Kappe, was both a design problem and a possible solution for architectural education. While aspects of SCI-Arc’s pedagogy embraced progressive methods, the book challenges the prevailing mythos of SCI-Arc’s legacy as a fringe school revoking conventions of practice that resisted the status quo of architectural production. Instead, the book argues that SCI-Arc began as an institution of progress within the norms of practice. This was achieved by prioritizing accreditation and hiring faculty immersed in the profession of architecture. SCI-Arc’s flexible curriculum became a tactic to promote personalized directions for discourse, providing its early students and the architects who taught there a platform to collectively rethink architecture’s development through advanced forms of architectural practice. SCI-Arc’s institutional culture relied on the versatility of its institutional framework to forge its pedagogy that was continually redesigned. The trajectory of SCI-Arc from the early 1970s through the late 1980s reveals how this alternative approach to education impacted architectural production within an emerging Los Angeles architectural culture. This in-depth study of the school is paralleled by

A Pedagogy of Progress

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Figure 1.18 SCI-Arc studio space, 1800 Berkeley Street, c. 1970s.

TABLE 1.01: 1972-73 – STUDIOS a Design Instructor: Ahde Lahti An introduction to design fundamentals including two or three dimensional design and color. Design Process Instructors: Jim Stafford and Thom Mayne Systems theory as applied to basic problem solving with specific emphasis on ecological-regional systems. Architectural Design Instructor: Bernard Zimmerman Architectural design problems dealing with specific building types, their special characteristics and complexities. Solutions related to student developed criteria for housing, civic, and commercial facilities. (EP) Building Science Instructor: Gary Neville Mass-producible design. Investigation focused in the area of experimental architectural systems or sub-systems integrating engineering design methodologies. Problem analysis; concept and design development; prototype construction; testing, evaluation, and modification; manufacturing and cost accounting; legal implications and marketing. Urban Design Instructor: Ray Kappe Design research dealing with urban, social, economic, political, and physical city systems. Alternative criteria and synthesis responding to definitive data gatherings and analysis. Professional Practice Instructor: William Simonian Introduction to materials, methods of detailing, contract drawings, and specification writing. (EP) a SCI-Arc Catalog, from SCI-Arc Archive (unpublished document, 1972). EP = Evening Program course.

TABLE 1.02: 1972-73 - SPECIAL PROJECTS a Special Project, Community ’72 Instructor: Glen Small Construction, exploration, evaluation, and testing of an experimental living community. 6-hour studio. Special Project 2 Instructor: Thom Mayne Research of modular factory-produced housing systems. Proto-typing, testing, and evaluation.

Special Project 3 Instructor: Ahde Lahti Photo silk screen as a graphic communication media preceded by an introductory photography course. Special Project 4 Instructor: Shelly Kappe New School publication involving writing, photography, layout, printing processes, graphics, and public relations. Special Project 5b Instructor: Glen Small A class devoted to studying megastructures in depth. History, field trips, research, projections, technical innovation, and three-dimensional studies. Students to work on mega-structure projects of their own choosing. SP05 a SCI-Arc Catalog, from SCI-Arc Archive (unpublished document, 1972). b Special Project 5 was only listed in the 1973 version of the catalog.

TABLE 1.03: 1972-73 – SEMINARS a Communication Techniques Instructor: Ahde Lahti Exploration into various presentation tools and techniques relevant to the communication of environmental and developmental experiences, ideas, and design concepts. Community Services and Facilities Instructor: Mark Hall Focus on planning for municipal services, neighborhood centers, and related facilities. Emphasis on community organization for the establishment of economic and political power. Designer as Advocate and Ecotactics Instructor: Bernard Zimmerman Focus on the role of social services and facilities within the urban community, the conditions of effective community participation in policymaking, and the role of the advocate within this framework. Student will become involved in political intervention processes in socio-environmental issues. Dreaming Instructor: Glen Small Encouraging the student to let his mind explore imagination, emphasizing the use of oneself as a source for the development of personal fantasy and freedom.

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Figure 2.16 SCI-Arc Evening Program announcement, 1973.

study based solely upon their relevance to the needs of the educational community and not upon unnecessary administrative processes.”26 The tone of this statement reflected the school’s desire to avoid top–down hierarchies of the type that had triggered the founding faculty to leave Cal Poly Pomona. The ability to change courses on the fly also gave the director very broad authority to shape the content that the school was teaching—and thus shape what students at SCI-Arc were learning. The nimbleness of the curriculum at SCI-Arc was enabled by the structure of the SCI-Arc administration. In lieu of a Curriculum Committee that managed curricular changes within the school, SCI-Arc relied on its Academic Board, which initially did not appear to have a formalized procedure that reviewed proposals or required votes from the faculty to make changes. Curricular changes could occur quickly if the Academic Board felt that a course, or a particular approach, was not working, or if a new direction better suited institutional goals. A defining ethos of 26. 1972 SCI-Arc Catalog, SCI-Arc Archive.

An Institution in Process

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SCI-Arc, made evident in their public communications, was that the school could add or remove courses based on Kappe’s and the Academic Board’s determination of their relevance for the academic community at the school. Throughout the early and mid-1970s, SCI-Arc exemplified the schoolwithout-walls concept: minimal administrative oversight that sought strategies to provide an education commensurate with the professional needs of future architects while allowing the students and faculty freedoms to pursue personal interests in design and architecture. However, the director of the school had the power to channel or limit these central freedoms and flexibilities. Kappe often served as the bridge between the faculty and the students, facilitating discussions that shaped SCI-Arc’s trajectory, such as the discussions about whether to seek accreditation from the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB)—an important step that would support students toward professional licensure in the United States. As the student body grew and changed, their collective needs changed, and so did their responses to the school’s open pedagogy. Between the first and second year of the school’s operation, the student body changed rapidly. Returning students included 30 undergraduate students and 12 graduate students, 3 of whom had just finished the fourth year of their undergraduate studies at SCI-Arc. However, these returning students were outnumbered by new students. In the fall of 1973, 90 new students joined SCI-Arc, raising the total student population to 132 undergraduate and graduate students. During this semester, Kappe also recognized a changing attitude in the school. The new students did not have the same sense of identity or commitment to the school’s central values as the founding students, many of whom had risked much to leave Cal Poly Pomona. The new students therefore related differently to SCI-Arc’s pedagogy. In SCI-Arc’s first year, both faculty and students had been willing to grow and adapt within the loose structure that had been established, and both groups focused more on the process of defining learning and methods than on results. By the second year, results began to take on greater importance. As Kappe put it, “The character of the school has changed. The searching that existed has diminished. There is a desire among the faculty for product. There seems to be a desire among the new students to find their relationships to architecture.”27 Many of the founding students shared a common experience of having left one school to create another where their voices reflected the emerging ethos of the new institution. However, the energy that drove the origins of SCI-Arc began to wane as new students and faculty were brought on board. Kappe’s notes on the second year reflected this changed environment. He remarked about how the dynamic differed from the year before: “The old students continue to search and float, but without the same sense of urgency. There is a desire for the original freedom, but I sense a large void in the material covered and the students’ ability to cope with architectural problems and schedules.”28 The challenge Kappe recognized was how 27. Ray Kappe, “The First Ten Weeks of the Second Year,” from Ray Kappe’s personal archive, shared with Benjamin J. Smith, February 24, 2015 (unpublished document, n.d.). 28. Kappe, “The First Ten Weeks of the Second Year.”

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1. Ray Kappe, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, February 24, 2015. 2. James Stafford, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, November 11, 2015. 3. Terrence Glassman, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, November 5, 2015. 4. Ray Kappe, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, June 13, 2013. This horizontal, soft-power leadership principle can be seen in SCI-Arc’s original faculty governance structure. Kappe articulated this as a function of his style of management. “I was never a big one on meetings.…If I wanted to talk to a faculty member, we’d go out to lunch.” When the school was established, there was only one faculty meeting per year at SCI-Arc. As the school became more regularized, faculty began to meet more frequently.

Establishing Identity

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After SCI-Arc received accreditation in 1976, its pedagogy remained dynamic. The school continued to value pushing the education of architecture forward, but faculty members approached this goal in different ways. The core faculty started to diverge, with some faculty working within the discipline, seeking to advance the field using formal and aesthetic invention and others remaining primarily committed to architecture’s environmental and social agenda and holding interdisciplinary attitudes. Broadly speaking, Mayne and Rotondi (via their collaboration in Morphosis), Moss, and Stafford began to establish their practices by growing their built work and gaining exposure within the press and trade publications, demonstrating unique postmodern alternatives distinct to Los Angeles [Figures 3.01–3.02]. In contrast, Kappe, Glassman, Lahti, and Small focused on social and environmental agendas for architecture, evolving and changing modernist principles that aligned with emerging human-centered and technological goals, at odds with postmodern trends taking hold [Figures 3.03-3.04]. Faculty were becoming divided by their attitudes toward architecture related to aesthetic and social concerns. Over time, the core faculty in these differing ideological camps developed strong voices that shaped the discourse at the school. This divide was not lost on Kappe. He intentionally brought in faculty with divergent perspectives to introduce competing ideas, maintaining the dynamic spirit that had characterized the school from its inception. This kind of leadership response was in line with Kappe’s interest in horizontal management. As he put it, he “hire[d] people [he thought were] good, and let them do their thing. If they can’t do their thing, then they’re gone….Hierarchies, I don’t think, work. People always feel threatened somehow.”1 Despite Kappe’s horizontal style, he was still clearly leading the school and shaping its direction; this was not a laissez-faire approach, which might seem more in keeping with the school’s emphasis on self-direction. As Stafford fondly characterized him, Kappe was “the epitome of the benevolent dictator….He took charge in a very soft-handed way.”2 Terry Glassman echoed Stafford’s sentiments, stating, “One of Ray’s skills was that he would identify people’s strengths and then give them latitude.”3 Kappe tended to let SCI-Arc play out like an experiment to get ideas churning without micromanaging.4

Figure 3.02 Eric Owen Moss Architects, Triplex Apartments, Playa Del Rey, California, 1976.

Figure 3.03 Ray Kappe, Sultan Residence, Santa Monica, California, 1972–1976.

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with an angular facade climbing up the building, which reflected a tapered parti— the organizing idea behind the design—that Morphosis would continue to iterate and elaborate on in their later large-scale civic projects, such as Cal Trans in downtown Los Angeles and the San Francisco Federal Building. The most noticeable shift in Morphosis’ work came in 1978, with the 2-46-8 House [Figure 4.04]. The small project was featured in Progressive Architecture and was a clear break from their previous modernist aesthetic, was developed in 1978, after Mayne returned to SCI-Arc from a two-year leave for graduate study at Harvard. In a 1997 interview in Global Architecture, Mayne reflected on the influences he had encountered there: “If you look at 2-4-6-8, you can see the traces of my time at Harvard, especially Rossi and Ungers.”6 The project represented a transition away from an eco-tech response to a coupling of Rossian archetypes with a California bungalow. This was an alternative to the beach vernacular that Los Angeles had grown accustomed to. Esther McCoy, writing in 1982 about both the 2-4-6-8 House and the Sedlack House, discussed these recent projects in relation to Mayne and Rotondi’s earlier work. “These houses resemble the firm’s Tijuana housing…only in the small area and the narrow lots. They come more out of Mayne and Rotondi’s unbuilt projects and teaching at Sci-Arc.” In connecting Mayne and Rotondi to SCIArc, McCoy noted the twofold condition at the school, “the newest and brightest Southern California architecture school, where the official ideal may be service, but 6. Mayne, “Studio,” 15.

An Emerging LA School

Figure 4.04 Morphosis Architects, 2-4-6-8 House, Venice, California, 1978, photograph by Marvin Rand.

Figure 4.05 Morphosis Architects, Sedlack House, Venice, California, 1980-1981, photograph by Marvin Rand.

Figure 4.06 Morphosis Architects, Sedlack House, axonometric, Venice, California, 1980-1981.

the product tends to be elitist.” She continued to evaluate the way the architects’ teaching was a possible influence for their shift in sensibility, discussing the kinds of collaborations at SCI-Arc between faculty with students [Figures 4.05-4.06]: “Typical of a new school with a young faculty is a close association between student and teacher; ideas spark ideas, theory doesn’t unseat theory—it adds on. Mayne and Rotondi (and the students who collaborated with them) lavished the care that an in vitro baby commands.”7 As McCoy noted, the 2-4-6-8 House uses commonplace materials to create a simple mass featuring a brightly colored collage of details surrounding the windows—what she called a “joyous play of colors on a drab surface.”8 McCoy’s description of the project indicates the evolution of the firm’s aesthetic, suggesting that they were increasingly focusing their sensibility on individual expression. This was, she said, a departure from their 1978 housing project in Tijuana, which the 1978 issue of Progressive Architecture had aptly titled “Everyman’s Casa.” As this review indicates, the 2-4-6-8 House signified the firm’s increasingly esoteric interest in how architecture was cognitively received, which they now sought to express through material combinations rather than the straightedge orthodoxy of ascetic forms. Other SCI-Arc faculty were also central to the shift in Los Angeles architecture. In 1978, Eric Owen Moss received his first PA Award for a collaboration with Jim Stafford, the Morgenstern Warehouse [Figures 4.07–4.09]. The project 7. Esther McCoy, “Retreats in Venice,” Progressive Architecture, vol. LXIII, no. 3 (March 1982), 80. 8. McCoy, “Retreats in Venice.”

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Figure 4.17 Morphosis Architects, Flores Residence Addition, axonometric, Pacific Palisades, California, 1979.

An Emerging LA School

Figure 4.16 Morphosis Architects, Flores Residence Addition, section, Pacific Palisades, California, 1979.

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Figure 4.18 Coy Howard, Gross Residence, axonometric (top) and interior perspective (below), Hollywood, California, 1979.

of Architectural Design titled Post-Modern Classicism, labeling 2-4-6-8 as “primitive classicism.” The project, named from the geometric seriality of the window sizes, are “2-4-6-8 feet and are framed in yellow squares which accentuate the proportions.” Jencks description of the Morphosis project casts it as whimsical but also serious. “With its cheerleading title, [2-4-6-8] makes references across opposite taste-cultures.” He gives explicit comparisons between 2-4-6-8’s dominant characteristics with features from classical architecture. “The cube (cella), pyramid (pitchroof), entrance signifier (pediment), concrete block (rusticated base), and studio with asphalt shingles (piano nobile) are treated with sober proportionality that is reminiscent of ancient prototypes.”23 However, in the work, Jencks also sees how it is an example distinct to the West Coast. “The straightforward use of modest materials, asphalt and concrete 23. Charles Jencks, Post Modern Classicism, Architectural Design 5/6 (1980), 112.

Figure 6.09 SCI-Arc undergraduate thesis reviews, c. 1989.

Forging New Directions

Figure 6.08 Coy Howard (right), installing SCI-Arc undergraduate thesis review, c. 1989.

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Figure 6.10 Coy Howard, Vacarro Pool, graphite drawing, Beverly Hills, California, 1976.

a rubric for him to evaluate design work. “I’m always judging everything by those standards.” They also inform his teaching that asks for students to reflect on how their sensibility affects design outcomes. “I tell everybody [on] the first day of class, the work you produce here is not going to be as important as those five principles.”59 Howard used these criteria to determine his Drawls, which evoke a mood with certain qualitative aspects that suggest tactility, profluence, and hybridized orders of geometry rather than being an explanation of the work’s construction in material and form.60 Howard recognizes conventions in architecture and nudges them just outside of familiarity, provoking curiosity—not something purposefully confusing or odd. His work instigates subtle shifts in perception through strangeness. 59. Coy Howard, interview by Benjamin J Smith, June 19, 2013. 60. Howard, interview, June 19, 2013.

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Figure 6.11 Coy Howard, Daniel Studio, Drawl, 1978.

Changes in Leadership

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Figure 7.11 Janet Simon, model, graduate thesis, instructed by Tom Buresh, SCI-Arc, 1989.

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Figure 7.12 Julie Herdt, Walking Buildings: A Moving School, plan (top) and models (bottom), graduate thesis, instructed by Wolf Prix, SCI-Arc, 1990.