REMEMBRANCES
NOTED LOS ANGELES ARCHITECT AND SCI-ARC TRUSTEE KURT MEYER Swiss-born architect Kurt Meyer, who designed numerous commercial buildings in the Los Angeles area, and served for five years as a SCI-Arc trustee, passed away in August after an eight-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. Meyer was a passionate advocate for great architecture in Los Angeles and a champion of saving the city’s architectural treasures. He believed wholeheartedly that it was possible to run a successful practice while at the same time serving the community. Born in Zurich, Meyer studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and served in the Swiss Army during World War II. In 1948, he came to the U.S., first living in Harrisburg, PA, before making the cross-country trip that resulted in his settling in Los Angeles. He founded his practice, Kurt Meyer and Associates (now Meyer & Allen Associates) in 1957, gaining a reputation for designing financial institutions, including those of flamboyant screenwriter-turned-banker Bart Lytton. Among the firm’s biggest projects were the Exxon regional headquarters complex in Thousand Oaks that opened in 1983 and the South Coast Air Quality Management District building in Diamond Bar dedicated in 1991. His firm also drew up master plans for Simi Valley’s civic center, the city of San Fernando’s business center and several other cities and institutions. Throughout his career, Meyer was an active member of several civic and professional organizations, participating as chairman and director of many committees. He was appointed by Mayor Tom Bradley to the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) charged with spurring development in underserved areas. He was CRA chairman from 1976 to 1978, during which time the agency participated in several low-income housing projects, among them, the Angelus Plaza on Bunker Hill, to this day the largest senior affordable housing community in the States. While at the CRA,
ERIC KAHN, LONGTIME DESIGN STUDIO PROFESSOR The SCI-Arc community was saddened to learn about the passing of longtime professor and architect Eric A. Kahn, who died at the age of 58. A senior design studio faculty at SCI-Arc for 25 years, Kahn was instrumental in educating many generations of SCIArc students, with whom he generously shared his deep love for architecture and drawing. SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss spoke warmly about Kahn at a memorial held at SCI-Arc. “Eric Kahn was a powerful and enduring intellectual and emotive presence at SCI-Arc. His strong and compelling voice for the primacy of architecture, his idiosyncratic drawings compiled over many years, his struggle to understand the context of the Holocaust and to give it a tangible architectural form, his dedication to teaching, his intimate partnership with our long time faculty member, Russell Thomsen, and of course his devotion to his family and to his parents—all in our hearts.” Kahn was one of three founding members of IDEA Office, formerly the Central Office of Architecture. He originally opened the office in 1987 together with fellow architects Ron Golan and Russell N. Thomsen. In 2009, he renewed his long-standing partnership with Thomsen to form IDEA Office. Their work includes design at all scales, from graphic design to installations
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Meyer worked with longtime SCI-Arc trustee Merry Norris, who became one of his closest collaborators. Norris, who was at the time President of the CRA’s Cultural Affairs Commission, speaks fondly about Meyer. “Kurt is the only mentor I ever had. He was clear, really smart and understood very well how the city worked. He was instrumental in ensuring the Commission was able to fully exercise its power to guard over the design quality of public buildings and challenge design professionals to apply their skills to the fullest.” Meyer joined the SCI-Arc board in 1987, and served as Chairman in 1992. SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss remembers his keen focus on strengthening the school’s financial situation. “Kurt was chairman of the SCI-Arc board, the first legitimate outside chairman, in an era when there wasn’t much organizational structure. He walked a delicate line between his efforts to manage and organize finances, accreditation, and the school’s instinct for a more laissez faire approach. Kurt was always careful to protect the investigatory and imaginative essence of SCI-Arc. As an architect himself, he had a lot of respect for the SCI-Arc instinct not only to develop conceptual ideas, but to develop those ideas with the intent to implement, to build. He saw SCI-Arc as a school for building architects.” Meyer’s generous support of SCI-Arc led to the establishment of an endowed scholarship in his name. In 1992, at age 70, Meyer sold his firm to pursue a lifelong interest in the Himalayas. He left the board of SCI-Arc and made plans to fly to Kathmandu. At the same time he met Pamela, his third wife, and together they spent four winters exploring Nepal’s lowlands, producing two books and a documentary film about Nepal’s Tharu culture. Meyer loved spending time with his children and their families, and took great pride in their many accomplishments. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughter Susanne Christopher of Portland, Ore.; sons Randy Meyer of Los Angeles and Rick Meyer of Simi Valley; three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
and industrial design, to architecture and urban planning. Recent works included a permanent installation at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and a new building at West Los Angeles College. The work of IDEA Office has been published in numerous journals and books, and a monograph of the work of COA was published in 1998 as part of the Contemporary World Architects series. Kahn was an essential ingredient of SCI-Arc for several decades. Within the Media Archive, he can be seen in 1991, discussing his work with Russell Thomsen and Ron Golan at COA. And then with Thomsen again in 2010, where they discuss their work as IDEA. Kahn’s installations and work included theoretical urban proposals for Los Angeles in Spaces In-Between, exhibited at UCLA; Dynamic of the Metropolis, exhibited at Tokyo’s Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan; RE: American Dream, exhibited at Barnsdall Arts Gallery and UCLA; and selected writings which discuss the condition of architecture and the city. The work of IDEA Office is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. Kahn held a Bachelor of Architecture degree from California Polytechnic State University and worked at firms including Florence-based Superstudio, Morphosis, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, before founding IDEA Office. His book, The Anatomy of Observation was published by SCI-Arc Press in 1998. As Professor Kahn would instruct us: There will be music again.