|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Interview with Bernard Zimmerman Page 4
v5: What would you say the power base of Sci-Arc is?
BZ: The power base at Sci-Arc in the last ten years has been Michael Rotundi. His leadership has been part of the continuum of what Ray Kappe would like. It's not everything that Ray Kappe would like, but it was part of it. Michael took some very strong positions. I just found out that when Michael took over, he had a house cleaning of the faculty there. He got rid of “ some of the social thinkers”. Not that he was opposed to social thinking, but he wanted a certain quality of person there. I think Michael did a wonderful job, he was the power base and Ray Kappe was his advisor. The real leadership at Sci-Arc and he's in the background and hasn't come forward, is Ray Kappe. He got very interested in this last process. You know, Ray, like we all do, shot himself in the foot; he could have made all the decisions for Sci-Arc for the rest of his life. He didn't want that kind of system.
v5: That wouldn't have been good for Sci-Arc.
BZ: Why not? Ray would have made Sci-Arc, he knows how to find talent and make talent.
v5: I understand that. But the school has grown beyond I think, that kind of decision making process that any one person could provide.
BZ: I don't think you're right at all. I don't think Sci-Arc is group decisions other than that they have good people. The group comes together, they try to influence the director, and the director says yes or no. The director is the controlling force there. I'm sure that any director would like not to take on Ray Kappe. I also think Ray Kappe tries to let things go by. Michael had his way and I think he did a very good job. They had a search, and it was a very methodical search. It took too long for me, but they ended up with a lot of good people. It's amazing the people who wanted to be directors could take over schools and make a big difference in education. The Sci-Arc list was incredible. Nobody knows for sure what the new director will do; yet I think he's reasonably respected. Do you know his work? Neil Denard, I mean.
v5: A little bit. I have not met him yet.
BZ: Were you surprised that he became the director?
v5: Well, I thought there were some people on the list that were inside SCI-Arc who knew the school better. But I wasn't that close to the selection process, although I was a little surprised when he was chosen.
BZ: They had Lebeius Woods and Neil Denari on the list and I thought between those two, you get one good person and that's enough.
The question you asked me was "What was the power base of SCI-Arc?" I'm saying to you its Michael Rotundi and Ray Kappe. The way Ray Kappe set it up, the selection process, there was more power in the student and faculty voting. You understand that?
v5: Does Pomona has a power base?
BZ: Yes, Pomona has a power base. Although it's not a very good or strong one in leadership. It could be, but it's yet to come. I would say the power base would be Sigrid Polland with the help of Bill Adams. Michael Folonis is not a power base person because he is not tenure. I would like to consider myself influential and that is why I stay there. I am very supportive of Sigrid and Bill Adams, but I don't know if they are strong enough. Sigrid is very smart and instead of her having confrontations like I do, she tries to find consensus between the groups of say Spiros and Paul. Then we have a strange group of people there that are nice people, but they are not for the educational process that I'm for, the experimental and creative. Yes, Pomona has a power base. You know we have a new Dean and we don't know what she is going to do. Yet I have great hopes for Pomona. I'm hanging in there only because I think I can help in the power base.
Pomona has played a big role for architecture in Los Angeles. People won't give it its credit, but it did. The seeds of SCI-Arc were started at Pomona. If it were not for Pomona, there would be no SCI-Arc. Just think of that.
v5: But in a way that is a sort of damning statement. People leave the Pomona program and develop other better programs rather than develop the Pomona Cal Poly program... Ray Kappe at Sci Arc and Pat Oliver at Art Center..
BZ: I think she's a power base at Art Center, but I haven't seen the thrust of architecture there. You keep telling me it's not an architectural school but one of environmental design. Patricia has done a wonderful job there and she is blossoming at Art Center.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
v5: What changes have you seen in the profession of architecture in the last twenty years?
BZ: Not enough for me. The issues that I talk about in the fifties are still the same issues. The profession has gotten worse; there is a lack of ethics and values. Lack of humanism. The biggest change in the profession is computers and I think that going to be a dead end. Everyone is rushing to become computer wise and all that and you get good pay for that. You don't get paid for thinking and conceptual ideas. You get paid because you know how to use the computer; they are like a draftsperson. The biggest change is the way work gets done. It's been in the production, technological field, there has not been a great many new materials. I mean, materials have not blossomed at the end of the nineteenth century, it's a repeat of materials we've had out of the industrial revolution. I remember Neutra was so mesmerized by aluminum, he would use aluminum, or it he couldn't get aluminum because the extrusions were not made at that time for seals, beams, post or mullions, he would paint them silver. So, I don't think we have that many new materials. Building in America has not been very good. I have wanted to get a whole building science group together of lightweight structures like the people do in London.
v5: Do you think that the separation of design architect verses production architect or office advances the building process?
BZ: Yes. Because its too hard to gather all the material and machinery. I was for an idea in the 1950's, I came to the large firms and said, "Why don't we run the large firms like hospitals, then young people could be part of the hospital, they do their small jobs and the big jobs and they are part of the system. Most large firms didn't want that because they could outbid or out fox or undercut smaller firms. There is so much knowledge that has to be transmitted in working drawings, that you need these specialists. Probably that is the biggest change, that it has gone from general practitioner to specialization. So you need that. I would love to be part of a hospital that has the greatest machinery, why should I practice in a mediocre way, at a time when we have all this knowledge. So, the large firms could be these hospitals or design centers, but they are not. They still have a petty way of thinking about business. Perhaps in the next century that will happen. Look at the dignity that you have, you graduate, and you associate with a hospital. You know hospitals don't take everyone, are you aware of that? They look them over and decide which one they want. Then you join the group and you can do your own little work, because it's non-profitable to the big machinery. You have all that machinery and design to do for yourself, but you can process it through the hospital or through the design center. I think that could be a very, very important thing. Today I met a graphic designer who does all his work at his office on his laptop. He could have all the information he wants and all the things he wants from his laptop. He then goes to Kinkos. He says Kinko's upgraded itself. That's his office, Kinko's. When someone says to me today, like on the Wiesenthal Center, "Do you have the insurance, do you have the bonding power?" I said, "No I don't, but I could get a firm to do that."
v5: Is that what happened to your work on the Wiesenthal project?
BZ: No, what happened was a whole mix up of personalities and a vicious developer, a vicious man. It's almost a story of what's going on with the Concert Hall. We will have to find out more about this guy Broad. Is Broad really trying to build a concert hall at an appreciative area of an artist or it he trying to show he's a businessman and he can move the architect around.
v5: As someone who is bringing money into that project, do you think you need to find out the answer to that question?
BZ: Of course.
Next
|
|
|
|
