LEADERSHIP PROFILE
FRANCES ANDERTON
A CONVERSATION WITH THE HOST OF DnA by Yu-Ngok, Lo, AIA
Not many radio shows are dedicated to architecture and design like the Los Angeles based program DnA (Design and Architecture) on KCRW. The show covers a wide range of design and architecture topics, from the perspective of designers, critics and users. It is aired on traditional FM radio and podcasted worldwide through the web. CONNECTION editor Yu-Ngok Lo met with the show's host, Frances Anderton, to talk about the show and how she sees the general public consuming architecture.
She has served in the past as LA correspondent for Dwell and the New York Times. Her books include Grand Illusion: A Story of Ambition, and its Limits, on LA’s Bunker Hill, based on a studio she co-taught with Frank Gehry and his partners at USC School of Architecture.
Yu-Ngok Lo (YL): You studied at The Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London (UCL). Talk about your career path that led you into architectural journalism and how your educational background prepared you for it?
YL: What inspired you to start hosting DnA in 2002? How has the program evolved and what will its future be? Do you foresee any changes to the way that architects, the public, and clients consume architecture?
Frances Anderton (FA):I have been interested in architecture since I was a child because my father bought houses and restored them in the very beautiful city of Bath in the west of England. He was not an architect, but he was very passionate about architecture and inspired me to study it.
FA: The program started in 2002 as a directive from Ruth Seymour, the former general manager of KCRW. The station had a show called Politics of Culture which would take a different topic of interest each week that was at the intersection of politics and culture.
During architecture school I discovered three things. First, I reaffirmed that I still absolutely love architecture. The second is that I was not temperamentally suited to be an architect. Architecture takes a lot of patience and is highly detailed and focused. I was more suited to communication and fast turnaround of ideas so it became clear that I should stay in the larger field of architecture but not necessarily become an architect.
In 2001, Rem Koolhaas was brought in to redesign and remaster plan the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA.) He had the idea to tear down four buildings and replace them with a single new building. People were very anxious about this and Ruth suggested dedicating an episode of the show Politics of Culture to talk about it.
The third thing I learned in architecture school was the difference between the way my father talked about buildings and the highly theoretical or academic way professors or architects talked about buildings. To my father, it didn't matter where they were or what era they were from, he just loved a good building and he talked about buildings in regular language. In architecture school I found the educational system has a set of values that are particular to the architecture world and it's in a language that could be impenetrable in some ways. This was something that really struck me very early on and I thought a lot about the communication of architecture.
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In addition to hosting DnA Frances writes about design and curates events. She co-produces DIEM, an annual design conference produced by the West Hollywood Design District. She curated Sink Or Swim: Designing For a Sea Change, a critically received exhibition of photographs, by Iwan Baan and others, of resilient architecture, shown in 2015 at the Annenberg Space for Photography.
CONNECTION
THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN JOURNAL OF THE YOUNG ARCHITECTS FORUM
It was a big story and she knew I was interested in architecture. She basically told me to go into the studio and just do it. It was a very terrifying experience, but after that we created a show called DnA. It was going to be once a month because she wasn't sure if there was an audience for design and architecture. What I believe, and hopefully the show demonstrates, is that people are broadly interested in design and architecture because it's such a dominant part of our lives and there seems to be a huge interest in what’s happening within our cities. If I said to the general manager twenty years ago that we should do a show about infrastructure and community-based design, that would not have sounded very exciting. Now you find a thirst for discussion about changes in transportation.