MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

Thom Mayne

2005 PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE LAUREATE

NATIONALITY AND COUNTRY

School of Architecture in London.

Thom Mayne, the 2005 Pritzker
Architecture Prize laureate, is a founder
and design principal of Morphosis, an
interdisciplinary and collectively organized
architecture firm.

Currently, he is a tenured faculty
member at the UCLA School of Arts and
Architecture.In 2013, he contributed a foreword to the book Never Built Los Angeles
by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin.

He is an American Architect born
in the 19th of January year 1944 in Waterbury, Connecticut in United States. He lived
for part of his childhood in Gary, Indiana.
When he was ten, his mother moved the
family to Whittier, California.

MORPHOSIS

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND AND

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Although he enrolled in California
State Polytechnic University, Pomona, he
received his bachelor of architecture degree
from the University of Southern California
in 1968. He then worked for two years as
a planner for Victor Gruen. He began his
teaching career at Cal Poly at Pomona, but
soon he, along with six colleagues, was
fired. That was the genesis of the founding of the Southern California Institute of
Architecture (SCI-Arc) in 1972. He returned
to school and received his master of architecture degree from Harvard University in
1978.

Mayne remains a presence in the
academic world. He currently teaches at the
University of Pennsylvania and has held
teaching posts at Columbia University, Harvard University, Yale University, the Berlage
Institute in the Netherlands and the Bartlett

Mayne, Livio Santini, James Stafford and Michael Brickler founded Morphosis in 1972; Michael Rotondi joined in 1975.
The firms design philosophy arises from an
interest in producing work with a meaning
that can be understood by absorbing the
culture for which it was made, and their goal
was to develop an architecture that would
eschew the normal bounds of traditional
forms.
Named after the Greek term, morphosis,
meaning to form or be in formation, Morphosis is a dynamic and evolving practice
that responds to the shifting and advancing
social, cultural, political and technological
conditions of modern life. A critical practice
where creative output engages contemporary society and culture through architectural design and education, Morphosis is
a process driven firm that seeks new and
different design challenges and has resisted
becoming specialized in any particular
building type. With projects worldwide, the
firms work ranges in scale from residential,
institutional, and civic buildings to large
urban planning projects. The firm also invests significant creative energy in drawing
and in the design of functional objects and

Throughout his
career to create an
original architecture,
one that is truly
representative of the
unique, somewhat
rootless, culture of
Southern California.
-Pritzker Prize Jury

furniture.

The work of Morphosis has a layered quality. Visually, the firms architecture
includes sculptural forms. In recent years,
such visual effect has been made possible
increasingly through computer design techniques, which simplify the construction of
complex forms.

Morphosis is known for their bold
designs, striking a balance between sculp-

tural and monolithic forms. In the jurys citation for his Pritzker Prize, his architecture
was described as showing a commitment
throughout his career to create an original
architecture, one that is truly representative
of the unique, somewhat rootless, culture of
Southern California.

As such, Mayne is not afraid of
challenging conventional notions of architecture, often courting controversy in the
process. For example, his recent proposal
for a 381-meter tall hotel in the small alpine
town of Vals attracted significant criticism,
even from the competition jury who publicly distanced themselves from the clients
decision; anticipating the heated public
reaction, Morphosis own press release described Mayne as The Bad Boy of Architecture.
CRITICISM

When Christopher Hawthorne,
architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times,
gives a bad review there is the sense that he
is essentially dismantling a building, chipping its faade apart, like breaking down
some charade in defense of the publics
honor. Like a hired killer he disappears the
architecture, but at the same time heightens
its visibility in the culture.

This ability, to provoke in such
ways, is precisely why Thom Mayne would
like to bar Mr. Hawthorne from taking a
crack at reviewing the new building he and
his firm, Morphosis designed for the firms
new offices.

On a recent tour of the new digs,
Mayne, as reported in The Architects Newspaper, was overheard saying, There are no
good writers in Los Angeles and All local
writers are horrible. To add further insult,
he wants a science writer to cover it. That
should be a short review.

According to the article Mayne
said he would not be allowing a local
architecture critic to write about his new
building.
(Sebastian Jordana, Archdaily, 2013)

WELL KNOWN PROJECTS

COMPLETED
Kate Mantilini / Beverly Hills, CA, 1986
6th Street Residence, Santa Monica, CA,
1988
Cedar Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Center,
Los Angeles, CA, 1988
Crawford Residence, Montecito, CA, 1990
Salick Healthcare Office Building, Los
Angeles, CA, 1991
Blades Residence, Santa Barbara, California, 1995
Sun Tower in Seoul, Korea 1997
Diamond Ranch High School, Pomona,
California, 1999
University of Toronto Graduate House,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2000
Hypo Alpe-Adria Center, Klagenfurt,
Austria, 2002
Caltrans District 7 Headquarters, Los Angeles, California, 2004
Science Center School, Los Angeles, California, 2004
University of Cincinnati Student Recreation Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2006
Public housing in Madrid, Spain, 2006
Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse,
Eugene, Oregon, 2006
San Francisco Federal Building, San Francisco, California, 2006
Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 2009
National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Satellite Operation Facility,
Suitland, Maryland, 2007
New Academic Building at 41 Cooper
Square, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, New

York, 2009
Perot Museum of Nature & Science, Victory
Park, Dallas, Texas, 2012
Emerson College Los Angeles Center, Los
Angeles, California, 2014
ARCHITECTURAL PHILOSOPHY

Architecture surprisingly free of
traditional presuppositions and classical
lingo: Morphosis represents the epiphany
of American West Coast architecture. The
offices projects display an intersection of
the refinements of engineering with a precise understanding of the use of materials
and the phenomenological effects of spatial
diversity.

Early projects were primarily of
smaller scale and locally based, yet today
Morphosis Architects is a significant global
player on the architectural scene, with offices in Los Angeles and New York and projects in North America, Europe, the Middle
East, and East Asia. This includes residential, institutional, and civic architecture, as
well as large-scale urban design projects and
small-scale object design. Parametric modeling and BIM are new tools in the hands
of an office which has nevertheless always
strived for spatial complexity and intricate
interplays between concept and construction.

Morphosis designs reflect the legacy of Southern Californian architects such
as Rudolph Schindler and Richard Neutra.
The studio was founded by Thom Mayne,
Livio Santini, James Stafford, and Michael
Brickler in 1972. They were joined three
years later by Michael Rotondi. The office
is named after the Greek term, morphosis,
which signifies a process of forming or
being in formation. Hence the name reflects
a willingness to embrace sculptural shapes
and the sensation of movement.

Morphosis design philosophy is
targeted at creating meaning in architecture as a reflection of physical and mental
contexts. Their buildings feature daring cuts
and sectioning, with a pragmatic sense of

materiality, the use of pressed steel plates,

concrete, and a few well-placed elements of
color. Visible constructions only add to the
formal excitement of open-ended and juxtaposing spaces, which testifies to a sound
understanding of urban surroundings and
programmatic constraints.

EMERSON COLLEGE,
LOS ANGELES

Layers:
Another consistent focus has been on
environmental impact. Morphosis treats
each building as part of the earth and the
environment. Over the last thirty years,
Morphosis have experimented with cutting
edge materials, climate-control systems, and
sustainable energy systems with the intent
of reducing each buildings environmental
impact.
Flow:
The obvious thing one is confronted with in
a Morphosis-designed building, is the feel
of mechanical structures and movement.
The movement of clockwork is suggested by
interlocking planes and forms suggestive of
gears and pistons. These are not imposing or
oppressive, however, due to the integration
of these forms with organic structures and
forms that lead one through each building
in a natural and intuitive way. The movement of humans through space, and our
interaction with our surrounding environment is in constant consideration. Each side
and turn of a Morphosis building is filled
with dynamic new forms that encourage a
playful, active interaction with the building.
ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES

The idea was to create a new integrated architecture combining elements of
a designs site, landscape, environment, and
cultural anomalies into a synthesized whole.
Each building is meant to fit in seamlessly
with its surroundings while at the same
time inciting a new energy for the area.
Another consistent focus has been on
environmental impact. Morphosis treats
each building as part of the earth and the
environment. Over the last thirty years,
Morphosis have experimented with cutting
edge materials, climate-control systems, and
sustainable energy systems with the intent
of reducing each buildings environmental
impact.

COOPER UNION
BUILDING

CALTRANS DISTRICT 7
HEADQUARTERS

PEROT MUSEUM

I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. Its a very

passive, weak profession where
people deliver a service. You
want it neo-Spanish, you get
neo-Spanish. Architecture with
any authenticity represents
resistance. Resistance is a good
thing.
-Thom Mayne

BILL & MELINDA GATES HALL

PERSONAL ANALYSIS

In contextual analysis; Thom
Mayne was born on a first world country, on
a time of plenty. Considering this, literally,
none of the methods he used, are applicable
to the country we live in now. However, In
an imaginary world where the main consideration in architecture is the derivation
rather than the practicality and economics,
some drops of his sensibility are agreeable.
Perhaps, in another life, the sense of oddity
and uniqueness could be the living spine of
Philippine architecture.

For now, the three things I could
wholeheartedly agree, are: his sense of
discovering and innovating for the goal of
uplifting the quality of life of the users, the
principle of fitting the built architecture
with its unbuilt context, and the sensibility
of technology used towards environmental
concerns.

Though his principles do not
immediately help the Philippine Architecture scene to grow, deconstructing it into
plain principles, without the arrogance of
its shocker quality, he is still a mover in
the scene, and standing up for the sake of
innovation and diversity in the international scene.

THE FLOAT HOUSE

PEROT MUSEUM

GIANT INTERACTIVE GROUP CORPORATE

HEADQUARTERS