Ron Radziner

Architecture and Radiation

There are thirty of us at Marmol & Radziner, all busily trying to partition our lives into more fascinating increments than the Calendar Section of Martha Stewart Living. Years of tinkering with our Lego sets has finally paid off with the completion of three new residences in Bel Air, Pasadena and the Lysaght Residence in Santa Monica. We remain committed to the concept of acting as the general contractor for many of our projects. We continue to offer our daily thanks and live sacrifice to El Nino for not turning our Pacific Palisades construction sites into mud wrestling rings. Although we are still trying to find our way out of the trees in Rustic Canyon, we see the light at the end of Latimer Road.

We are still overwhelmed by Barry Manilow’s blessing of the restoration of his former home, Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs. A section of the property containing Mr. Manilow’s foot prints was roped off for weeks. Several years ago, we took Palm Springs architect Albert Frey out to lunch to discuss our restoration of the Loewy House, originally designed in 1947. Since Mr. Frey’s entire order consisted of a slice of apple pie and chocolate ice cream, we now eat only apple pie and chocolate ice cream on the job site in hopes of some day achieving Mr. Frey’s grace in creating a sympathetic relationship between nature and architecture.

After a season of youthful wanderlust, the Child Care Center for the Los Angeles International Airport has finally snuggled in to a bigger and better site. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring. We also recently won a competition to design the first charter school in South Central Los Angeles, a 130,000 square foot elementary and junior high school. Whenever we want to remind ourselves why we spend our lives staring deep into screens of radiation, we visit the Mark Taper Center / Inner-City Arts. Designed in collaboration with Michael Maltzan Architects, Inner-City Arts was completed in 1994 and currently provides arts education to over 4,300 elementary children in the Los Angeles Unified School District. We also enjoy climbing around on a one hundred seat amphitheater, which is the first completed phase of a Master Plan for TreePeople, an environmental education center located in Coldwater Canyon.

When we are not eating apple pie and chocolate ice cream, we like to talk to our clients about how to create beautiful and lasting structures which fulfill their needs, desires and dreams. We especially like to work for non-profit organizations and public agencies which are dedicated to improving our community.

volume5