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Our Diary of the Getty’s L.A. Architecture Project: SCI-Arc’s Gala and a Concert at Jackie Treehorn’s House
SCI-Arc at Forty: The Original “Alternative” Architecture School
KCRW Design & Architecture blog, August 17, 2012 by Maura Lucking
LA Weekly, May 30, 2013, by Alissa Walker
Maybe, moving into its next forty years, SCI-Arc is better off shedding the mantle of the “alternative,” “countercultural,” or
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Who would have guessed that with just the right amount of booze, architects can be so much fun? On a warm April night I headed to SCI-Arc for its 40th anniversary gala, which also provided a peek 22 at the PSTP show “A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture “experimental.” Still something of an oddity in American archiGallery, Venice 1979.” The exhibition traces a series of shows held tectural education with its artistically and technically sophisticated in architect Thom Mayne’s Venice home in 1979 featuring a dozen installations—a far cry from that early warehouse scaffolding—the architects who would come to put L.A. on the map. One could mill program nonetheless has a steep task ahead of itself to remain inabout the show then step into the other room and see those grinvolved and relevant in higher education, avant-garde architectural ning heretics wearing the same smiles 30-odd years later (and in a practice, and global and local community engagement. An effort few cases, I think, wearing the same clothes). to keep SCI-Arc “weird,” as those nostalgic for its past might The colorful architectural models in the show seemed to influwish for, would only create the very ideological allegiance that ence gala designer Alexis Rochas, who included custom-printed, the school has sought to avoid and stifle the creative freedom and unique-pattered tablecloths that looked more like beach umbrellas flexibility it has fought so hard to maintain. We can only hope… than your typical Over the Hill decor. Most of the architects wore black on black, of course, but there were a few highlights, like 1972-1973 SCI-Arc, aka The New Genik Undergraduate Program director. School, begins its first year in October SCI-Arc Gallery opens. SCI-Arc director of academic affairs Ming Fung and husband and at 1800 Berkeley Street, Santa Monica, partner Craig Hodgetts, who looked like spring chickens, both in 2003 W.M. Keck Lecture Hall with Ray Kappe as director. established. SCI-Arc Store on Traction bright yellow. 1974 Graduate program begins. Avenue opens. Out in the parking lot, architects Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu 1976 Undergraduate and graduate 2005 Graduate Thesis and Graduation repurposed their knitted Netscape pavilion into the frilly, spandexprograms receive initial NAAB shift from late spring to early fall to open clad Stormcloud for the after party. With the addition of students, accreditation. the school year. SCI-Arc Press prints electronica and beer (which ran out quickly), it made for a little first two publications. SCIFI post1978 European studies program begins graduate program launches in summer. slice of Coachella in downtown L.A. in Nimes, France.
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SoCal’s Rebel Design School Grows Up
Los Angeles Magazine, April 22, 2013, by Jenny Lower
1984 European studies program begins in Vico Marcote, Switzerland. 1986 First Japanese exchange with the
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Complete the sentence: You know you’re officially establishment when… You buy your first home? You hit 40? You earn kudos from “the man”? In SCI-Arc’s case, it’s all three. Two years after the progressive Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc in the vernacular) purchased the narrow, quarter-mile-long strip of building it had been renting for a decade, the city’s anti-establishment design school celebrated its big 4-0. The anniversary follows news that the 2013 America’s Best Architecture Schools survey from trade publication DesignIntelligence now ranks SCI-Arc the 6th best program for graduate architecture studies in the nation, right behind MIT and a smattering of Ivies. For undergraduate curriculum, it comes it’s the 2nd best, beaten only by Cornell. In his welcome note on the school’s website, Moss writes, “SCI-Arc is the institute of the provisional paradigm. And when the provisional paradigm threatens to become a permanent allegiance—and it inevitably does—we begin again.” We all gotta grow up sometime, but leave it to SCI-Arc to do it with style.
1987 Alumnus Michael Rotondi becomes director. Robert Mangurian becomes Graduate Program director. Making and Meaning: The Foundation Program in Architecture begins in summer. 1988 SCI-Arc receives NEH grant to develop a humanities curriculum appropriate to architectural education. 1991 SCI-Arc and Yale represent U.S. in Venice Biennale. 1992 School moves to industrial building at 5454 Beethoven Street. 1994 Kappe Library dedication. 1995 Undergraduate and graduate programs receive initial WASC accreditation. 1997 Neil M. Denari becomes director. 1998 Michael Speaks becomes Graduate Program director and Gary Paige Undergraduate Program director. 2000 Move to temporary buildings at Freight Yard, downtown Los Angeles. 2001 Renovation of permanent home at Freight Depot completed and first classes held there. 2002 Eric Owen Moss appointed director. Hsinming Fung becomes Graduate Programs director and Chris
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2006 Temporary graduation pavilion program initiated. 2007 Robert A. Day Foundation gifts $1 million, dedicated to stateof-the-art technology and facilities. MediaSCAPES post-graduate program launches. 2008 SCI-Arc Press releases the first issue of Onramp, a collection of student work. Milan study abroad summer program “Design is One” begins. 2009 A New Infrastructure: Transit Solutions for Los Angeles, SCIFI open ideas competition and publication. 2010 Hsinming Fung appointed Director of Academic Affairs. Hernan Diaz Alonso becomes Graduate Programs Chair, and John Enright Undergraduate Program Chair. First issue of SCI-Arc bi-yearly magazine published. 2011 SCI-Arc announces purchase of Santa Fe Freight Depot building and land. ESTm post-graduate program launches. Robot House opens. Design Immersion Days (DID), summer program for high-school students, begins. 2012 SCI-Arc Media Archive launches with grants from the Getty Foundation and NEA. Grant from Art Place funds new Graduation Pavilion and Hispanic Steps. Frank and Berta Gehry endow the Gehry Prize, awarded annually to the best graduate thesis at SCI-Arc. 2013 Trustee Tom Gilmore endows the Gilmore City Chair with $1 million planned gift. SCI-Arc ranks #1 in Western U.S. in America’s Best Architecture Schools survey by Design
21. Thom Mayne and Annie Chu (B.Arch ’83) 22. Shelly Kappe, Peter Cook, Florencia Pita 23. Abigail Scheuer (M.Arch ’93), Jerry Neuman, Ian Robertson 24/30. The tabletops designed by Alexis Rochas 25. Jennifer Gilman (M.Arch 2007), Coy Howard, Alexis Rochas 26. Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ’92) and Peter Zellner 27. Craig Hodgetts and Bill Fain 28. Frances Anderton, Tom Gilmore, Abigail Scheuer (M.Arch ’93), Hsinming Fung 29. Chris Genik, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Eric Owen Moss (fourth from left) with guests 31. Jerry Neuman speaks at the event