"The L.A. Twelve": A Snapshot of Los Angeles Architecture in 1976

The 1976 "Los Angeles 12" exhibition at the Pacific Design Center had its genesis in 1974 as a senior project co-initiated by Charles Slert and his faculty advisor, Bernard Zimmerman of the Cal Poly Pomona Architectural Department. Through this project Slert desired to acquaint himself with Los Angeles architects and their design philosophies. Slert and Zimmerman devised a strategy of selecting a group of architects to interview and document the process which gradually evolved into the subject exhibition.

Initial selection criteria centered upon choosing 12 architects who had been practicing 12 years and had designed 12 projects through which some commonalities might be examined.  After some modification in approach, the exhibition became a reality in May, 1976 when the "L.A. 12" opened in exhibition participant Cesar Pelli's newly opened Pacific Design Center. (see my January 14, 2010 post).

(Click on images to enlarge)

Exhibition poster (see above and below)scanned from "Jerrold E. Lomax, FAIA: The First 80 Years" a MODAA exhibition catalog published by Studio Pali Fekete Architects. (Zoltan Pali was a former Lomax employee). Originally published in the May 1976 issue of L.A. Architect. (from my collection)

The twelve architects featured in the exhibition were Roland Coate, Daniel Dworsky, Craig Ellwood, Frank Gehry, Raymond Kappe, John Lautner, Jerrold Lomax, Anthony Lumsden, Leroy Miller, Cesar Pelli, James Pulliam, and Bernard Zimmerman. Not all are all household names in the field today but at the time were more than an adequate cross-section to provide a snapshot of what was happening on the L.A. architectural scene.

An all-day conference was held in the Pacific Design Center on May 22 in conjunction with the exhibition. Julius Shulman presented a slide lecture "Los Angeles - The Early Years" followed by morning and afternoon panel discussions featuring half of the participants. (See schedule below). The conference was reported on by Shelly Kappe in the July 1976 issue of L.A. Architect. She included some interesting quotes from British architectural critic Charles Jencks and noted Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman who were both in attendance.

L.A. Times staff writer John Dreyfuss provided an in-depth review of the exhibition in the May 23, 1976 issue of the Los Angeles Times titled "Work and Philosophy of 12 Architects." He reported that each architect was provided a 75-foot-long, 5-foot-high rack on which 13 20-inch-square panels provided project photos and firm information. The exhibition also included two slide projectors flashing images of the architect's projects and two videotape machines providing five-minute discourses on the design philosophy of each participant. Several models augmented the overall display. Dreyfuss also commented on the work and philosophy of each participant. The exhibition traveled to the Aspen Design Conference and Cal Poly Pomona and the 1977 national AIA convention in San Diego.

The Architectural Record published a 10-page review of the traveling exhibition "And then there were 12...The Los Angeles 12" in August 1976 issue (see below). The article, an in-depth look at L.A. architecture announced that "in thought and in deed, architecture is alive and well in the city of angels." The profile included Julius Shulman photos of the Bradbury Building by George Wyman, Dodge House by Irving Gill, Freeman House by Frank Lloyd Wright, Raymond Kappe's personal residence, the Bank Bumi Daya in Jakarta by Leroy Miller, the Heidemann Residence by James Pulliam, a photo studio by Bernard Zimmerman, the Wiltern Building, a Greene & Greene house and works by R. M. Schindler.

Dreyfuss followed up with an article on August 14, 1977 in the L.A. Times titled "The L.A. 12: Good Idea Which Has Gone Nowhere." Dreyfuss lamented on the lost opportunity formation of this group provided such as: bringing recognition to Southern California architecture, bringing architects together to discuss their work, encouraging and inspiring young architects, generating articles in the professional journals and popular press, and organizing conferences within the AIA and with architects from other cities and countries. Dreyfuss cited as an example how much the 12 architects had learned from each other just by participating in the exhibition and related discussions.

Dreyfuss continued stating that "There is a lack of communication among Southern California architects, a gap that could be filled if the L.A. 12 continued to meet." This was seconded by Cesar Pelli who left L.A. to become Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture who said "In the East, architects are in close contact with each other. They exchange ideas frequently, both informally and through organizations. This is the key thing. As your thoughts develop, they are being examined."

"12 Los Angeles Architects" edited by N. Charles Slert and James R. Harter, Photographic Consultants: Julius Shulman and Marvin Rand, 1978, Cal Poly Pomona. (from my collection)

The publication of "12 Los Angeles Architects" (see above) in 1978 coincided with a year-long lecture series "Twelve Architects / Twelve Months" in the Knoll Showroom at the Pacific Design Center sponsored by the Architectural Student Forum of the Student Chapter/AIA of Cal Poly Pomona. My partner Beth Kudlicki fondly remembers this series as she was showroom manager for Knoll during this period. Each of the 12 architects featured in the "The Los Angeles 12" exhibition lectured in the series. This was possibly a response to the previously-mentioned Dreyfuss article in an attempt to keep the idea of the "L.A. 12" alive. The above book is extremely scarce and prized by collectors. It includes roughly 15 to 20 pages on each of the participant's work including transcribed interviews following a brief bio.

In the book Slert divides the 12 architects into four groups: "the Expressionalists" including Roland Coate, Jr. Anthony J. Lumsden, and Cesar Pelli; "The Constructionists" including Craig Ellwood and Raymond Kappe; "The Rationalists" including Daniel L. Dworsky, Jerrold Lomax, Leroy Miller, James Pulliam and Bernard Zimmerman; and "The Experimentalists" including none other than Frank O. Gehry and John Lautner.

Nicholas Pyle's insightful foreword analytically compares the similarities and differences of the L.A. 12 with the New York 5 (Meier, Hejduk, Eisenman, Graves and Gwathmey) and the Chicago 7 (Tigerman, Booth, Nagle, Weese,  Freed, Beeby and Cohen). He characterizes the New York 5 as "jockeying for a favorable position in the great cultural free-for-all while the Chicago 7 were trying to attain a separate identity from their city's monolithic architectural establishment."

Pyle continues, "The L.A. 12, however, are not trying to achieve either an established style or an anti-establishment coup. They are already designers of considerable influence and achievement, including in their number heads of schools of architecture and principles for design in large established firms. They might be said to exemplify the highest ideals of the architectural mainstream. Their crusade, such as it is, seems not to be on the behalf of themselves. Rather it is to illustrate their conviction that the profession of architecture can without overthrowing its traditional values successfully serve the interests of the marketplace."

He closes with "The concern that the L.A. 12 express in this book is an appeal both to the decision-makers that are overseeing the increasing disarray of our world and to the designers and future designers who are beginning to feel adrift in it. The role of architects is still to provide the physical world with beauty and order."

The L.A. 12 were a somewhat random selection of architects which gave us a snapshot of Southern California architectural design sensibilities in the mid-1970s. In future blog posts I intend to revisit a series of other historical California architectural exhibitions and the architectural discourse they might have generated in their day. Stay tuned.

Pellisimo!! Red Building Rising: Cesar Pelli's Missing Link: The 40-Year Saga of the Pacific Design Center

An appropriately colored crane for Pelli's Red Building. Photo by John Crosse, January 2010. 

While attending the on-going exhibition "Folly - The View From Nowhere" (see my January 13, 2010 post) recently at MOCA Pacific Design Center I happened to notice the above gigantic red crane looming over the construction site for the long-awaited missing piece of Cesar Pelli's grand vision for the Pacific Design Center. With any luck, the Red Building, Phase III of a 40-year effort, should be completed sometime in 2011. Phase I, the beloved "Blue Whale" was completed in 1975 after a five-year design and construction period. Based on the state of the current economy the Red Building may take as long as the Blue Whale did, i.e. nine years, to become fully leased.

I attended the gala groundbreaking ceremony for the Red Building on March 29, 2007 during the annual Westweek festivities. The official program below commemorated the event.

 

 Covers of the Red Building Groundbreaking brochure. (from my collection).

 

Interior of the Red Building Groundbreaking brochure. Note Pelli's signature. (from my collection).

 March 29, 2007 issue of the L.A. Times. p. C1. (from my collection).

The above article talks about a booming economy and the timing finally being right to build the final phase of the PDC. One can't help but wonder if the project would have gone forward in light of the economic and financial events of the past year-and-a-half.

March 29, 2007 issue of the L.A. Times. p. C2. (from my collection).

March 30, 2007 issue of the L.A. Times. p. C2. (from my collection).

 Design Book Review 12, Spring 1987 issue commemorating the groundbreaking for the Green Building. (from my collection).

Interiors, February 1987 issue with Paula Jackson cover story commemorating the groundbreaking for the Green Building. Hans Neleman photo. (from my collection).

Site plan with all three phases complete from the above cover story. (from my collection). 

Quoting Pelli from the above feature cover story "The first building was rigorously conceived as a unique, free-standing architectural object sitting on the ground and clad in brightly colored ceramic glass. I never imagined for a moment that I would ultimately have to re-think the relationships between the "Blue Whale," the site and the community around it. But that is exactly what happened. To 'undo' that which was 'finished' has been an extraordinarily creative experience but I think we've made the site much richer as a result. Each of the two additional phases will have its own character, will be seen as an independent, individual fragment coming together in a beautiful and an exciting complex of forms."   

 January 1987 issue of Progressive Architecture, 34th Annual P/A Award for the Pacific Design Center Expansion. Model by Model Concepts. (from my collection).

 

 March 1989 cover story "Green Phase" by John Morris Dixon describes the completion of the Green Building. Photo by Aker Photography. (from my collection).

 

Back cover of "Cesar Pelli" by John Pastier, published by Whitney, 1980. (from my collection). 

"Cesar Pelli" author John Pastier states "Here (the Blue Whale) is a speculative undertaking that manages to outshine the city's recent public monuments, but it's quirky form and sharp break in scale have puzzled and even outraged many Los Angeles residents. It's contextual effects may be honestly debated today (late 1970s), but in time the sea will rise, surely enough to make it seem more like a dolphin." How prescient he was! 

The below two publications are indicative of the big splash made by the "Blue Whale" on the L.A. architectural scene upon completion in late 1975.

Left: A View of California Architecture: 1960-1976 by David Gebhard and Susan King, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1976. (Exhibition catalog from my collection). Right: Cover story, L.A. Architect, December, 1975 (from my collection). 

From the November 7, 1971 issue of the L.A. Times.

Above is the earlist mention of the Pacific Design Center project in the L.A. Times.