Issuu

equality between teacher and student, director and faculty, architect and intern—that what you bring to the table in architecture matters, and you better be able to talk about it. The opportunity to speak with SCI-Arc founding director Ray Kappe provided a significant comment about one of the tremendous advantages SCI-Arc directors have. In comparison to many other schools of architecture, SCI-Arc directors have the ability to come in and re-shape the school’s pedagogy and direction quickly and specifically.3 Eric embraced this in his approach to directing SCI-Arc, and it became clear how he invoked that responsibility. Talking with him about his pedagogical ambitions, some of his motives as director, he said, were “to stretch the range of content, to stretch the range of possibilities, to stretch the range of theoretical possibilities . . . and to do it in an interrogative way, in an optimistic way. . . . To continue to open up possibilities, to be inquisitive, and to wonder . . . retain[ing] the capacity to be fascinated, to be astonished.”4 These values become evident by the range of people and ideas that were brought to the school over the past 14 years. This past semester alone is representative of the diversity of people teaching and passing through SCI-Arc with lectures from Henk Ovink, Frank Gehry, Todd Williams and Billie Tsien, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, and Craig Dykers; exhibitions from Coop Himmelb(l)au followed by Harry Cobb; and vertical studios with Hernan Diaz Alonso, Marcelyn Gow, Coy Howard, Jeff Kipnis, Eric Owen Moss, David Ruy, Peter Testa, Peter Trummer, and Tom Wiscombe. A pedagogy that is self-critical and open to what is outside its own walls, reveals the many differences that exist in our discipline. There is not one way to do architecture. There are many ways. Eric, being receptive to that notion, always seems to provoke an underlying question that understands the value of discussing what architecture should do, rather than only asking what it can do. There is intrigue to a school that can embrace two contrasting aphorisms, that “too much of everything is just enough”5 and to do more with less,6 signaling hunger and precision, the hunger to wander and explore everything, but to develop the precision to refine and present cogent ideas. If Eric has established a pro forma for SCI-Arc, it is the idea that “pro forma needs to be scrutinized, has to be evaluated, has to be examined, and if scrutinizing [it] yields a different prospect or a different pro forma or different possibilities, that is part of the job.”7 This approach, that questions, deliberates, and acts, also means that novelty cannot be accepted without critique and that dogmas need to be challenged. It means that what is put into the world needs to be tested and valued, and changed as needed. The ability to make change happen expediently is something Eric emphasized during his term as SCI-Arc’s director. A unique institutional makeup, without many of the bureaucratic hurdles of larger universities, coupled with an “aggressive and inquisitive faculty and student body,”8 allowed him to resist institutional stasis, and enliven a dynamic environment at SCI-Arc characterized by the people, the work, and the building. One substantive curriculum change was the thesis schedule. In 2006 graduate thesis reviews were moved from January to September, which rethought the typical academic calendar. Moving this event to the beginning of the academic year allowed incoming students to listen to the outgoing students and participate in an exciting moment at the school right away, where they can see what has been done and can begin to 1

speculate about what could be better.9 Recognizing SCI-Arc’s characteristic ability to be agile, in a relatively short time period the school was able to make substantive advancements with regard to available resources that included purchasing its building, designing and building annual graduation pavilions, host numerous exhibitions, amplify the amount of publications, open the Robot House and the Magic Box, provide a cafe, and create a gathering space with the Hispanic Steps, while maintaining a persistent influx of new, young, and talented faculty and staff. In last spring’s SCI-Arc Magazine Todd Gannon began his essay with a compelling statement from Eric regarding SCI-Arc’s position toward history—that the school refuses it—yet, Eric concluded his thought with a bracketed question “[or does it?]” signaling the ruminating effect history has within discussions at SCI-Arc. History lingers. How history is used at a school is an important negotiation. Design does not happen in a vacuum, but neither does it rely on the past for validation. Nietzsche offers a convincing view of history in his book, Untimely Meditations, where he states “we need history, certainly, but we need it for reasons different from those for which the idler in the garden of knowledge needs it. . . . We want to serve history only to the extent that history serves life: for it is possible to value history to such a degree that life becomes stunted and degenerate.”10 In his text, Nietzsche charges the cynic and the champion of history to use history critically to achieve balance between the past and the present. The promise in finding this balance is through the production of something new. How should we get there? What’s next? Eric can have the last word. [For now.] I think confidence is important. I’ve often said to students that SCI-Arc deals with students and architects one student at a time or one architect at a time. So you’re not dealing with a mass culture, with mass indoctrination. The one thing that’s critical . . . is an ability to listen, to look at what’s taught, to look at what’s exhibited, to look at what’s built, to look at what’s lectured about, to look at all of those things, to enjoy it, to appreciate it, to learn from it and to take it apart. What’s missing? What can be other than it is? What did Moss leave out?11

Charles Moore quoted by John Dreyfuss, in “An Unlikely Dash of Exuberance.”

Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1978, F1. 2.

Jencks, Charles. “Los Angeles Now: 29 April-29 May, 1983: LA Style - LA School

[Exhibition Review].” AA Files 5 (1984): 90 3.

Ray Kappe, interview by Benjamin J. Smith February 24, 2015.

Eric Owen Moss, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, April 7, 2015.

John Perry Barlow with Bob Weir, I Need a Miracle, Studio Album, Arista, 1978.

R. Buckminster Fuller, Nine Chains to the Moon, Anchor Books1938, 1978.

Eric Owen Moss, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, April 7, 2015

Ibid.

10.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and R. J Hollingdale, transl., Untimely Meditations.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 2011 Kindle edition. 11.

Eric Owen Moss, interview by Benjamin J. Smith, April 7, 2015

BENJAMIN J. SMITH is the 20142015 Design of Theory Fellow at SCIArc teaching Design Studio and Cultural Studies courses. He is a founding partner of LOOP, a firm engaged in advanced building and design practices. Benjamin is a Candidate in the Doctoral Program in Architecture at University of Michigan writing a dissertation titled: “Without Walls: SCI-Arc and Los Angeles Architecture of the 1970s and 1980s” and has published numerous papers related to his research. He received his Bachelor of Arts at St. Olaf College and his Master of Architecture at SCI-Arc. At SCI-Arc he was honored with a distinguished graduate thesis and the Alpha Rho Chi Medal. Benjamin has worked for Morphosis Architects in Los Angeles and Paris, and George Yu Architects in Los Angeles. Previously, he has been an instructor and guest critic at University of Michigan and a guest critic at SCI-Arc, University of Kentucky, and Woodbury University.

7. The New City, Culver City, Eric Owen Moss Architects and owners Frederick and Laurie Smith. 8. Morgenstern Warehouse, Los Angeles, Eric Owen Moss Architects. 9. Todd Gannon and Eric Owen Moss during Undergraduate Thesis, 2014. 10. SCI-Arc Graduation Pavilion Competition exhibition discussion, 2012. 11. Eric Owen Moss Architects office, Culver City. 12. Petal House, Los Angeles, Eric Owen Moss Architects. 13. The Beehive, Culver City, Eric Owen Moss Architects.