Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is a private

architecture school This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is an institution specializing in architectural education. Africa ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. Founded in 1972, SCI-Arc was initially regarded as both institutionally and artistically

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

and more adventurous than traditional architecture schools based in the United States. It consists of approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members, some of whom are practicing

architects An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. It is based in the quarter-mile long () former

Santa Fe Freight Depot Santa Fe Freight Depot is a quarter-mile-long building in the industrial area to the east of Downtown Los Angeles, now known as the Arts District. The Southern California Institute of Architecture converted the structure into its campus in 20 ...

in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles and also offers community events such as outreach programs, free exhibitions, and public lectures.

History

SCI-Arc was founded in 1972 in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

by Ray Kappe,

Shelly Kappe Shelly Kappe (born 1928 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an architectural historian and academic who specializes in the residential history of Los Angeles. She was a founding member of the faculty at the Southern California Institute of Archi ...

, Ahde Lahti,

Thom Mayne Thom Mayne (born January 19, 1944) is an American architect. He is based in Los Angeles. In 1972, Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), where he is a trustee and the coordinator of the Design of Cities p ...

, Bill Simonian, Glen Small, and James Stafford, a group of faculty from the Department of Architecture at

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona, CPP, or Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo. See the ''name'' section of this article for more info ...

. The founders were frustrated with the treatment of students and faculty members by administrators at Cal Poly''SCI-Arc at Forty: The Original 'Alternative' Architecture School''
''SCI-Arc at Forty: The Original 'Alternative' Architecture School''
17 Aug 2012. Retrieved 26 Sep 2022., and wanted to approach the subject from a more experimental perspective than traditional schools offered. Originally called the New School, SCI-Arc was based on the concept of a "college without walls," and it remains one of the few independent architecture schools in the world. Initially, instead of academic hierarchies the School favored a horizontal relationship between professors and students, who took responsibility for their own course of study. Kappe, who had founded the Cal Poly department, became the new school's first director and served in that position until 1987. He was awarded the AIA/ACSA Topaz Medal for excellence in architecture education in 1990.''Volume5''

19 Sep 2007. Kappe was succeeded as director by Michael Rotondi, one of SCI-Arc's original students.

Neil Denari Neil Denari (b. Fort Worth, Texas September 3, 1957) is an American architect, professor, and author. Based since 1988 in Los Angeles, Denari emerged in New York during the 1980s with a series of theoretical projects and texts based on the col ...

became director in 1997;

Eric Owen Moss Eric Owen Moss (born 1943 in Los Angeles) practices architecture with his eponymously named LA-based firm founded in 1973. Education Moss was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1943. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Califo ...

served as director from 2002–2015; Hernán Díaz Alonso was appointed Director and Chief Executive Officer effective Sept 1, 2015. Díaz Alonso has been a faculty member at SCI-Arc since 2001. He is known for championing the school's push toward a digital future and, prior to his appointment as Director, has served as the school's Graduate Programs Chair since 2010. Although SCI-Arc was once unaccredited and its finances unstable—Moss joked, "We used to be considered one step ahead of the IRS, one step ahead of creditors"—the school is now fully accredited, and its finances improved to the point that SCI-Arc was able to pay $23.1 million to buy its campus building in 2011. "The main thing is to figure out a way for SCI-Arc to keep growing without losing its character and pedigree," Díaz Alonso said in an interview following his appointment as director.

Campus

The open nature of SCI-Arc's program is reflected in the series of industrial buildings that have housed the school, where students are encouraged to design and construct their own studio environments, and occasionally full-scale projects. The school has been based in three locations—the first (1972-1992) a small industrial building in Santa Monica and later moved into the second, a much larger (architecturally unique concrete post & beam) industrial building (1992-2000) in

Marina del Rey Marina del Rey (Spanish for "Marina of the King") is an unincorporated seaside community in Los Angeles County, California, with an eponymous harbor that is a major boating and water recreation destination of the greater Los Angeles area. The ...

. In 2001, it moved to its current home, the 60,000-square-foot 1907

Harrison Albright Harrison Albright (May 17, 1866 – January 3, 1932) was an American architect best known for his design of the West Baden Springs Hotel in Orange County, Indiana. Biography Born in the Ogontz neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Pennsylva ...

on the eastern edge of Downtown Los Angeles. When SCI-Arc arrived, the building was a stripped-down concrete shell. Today the building is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

and the school has become an anchor for the city's Arts District. The school conducts design projects that engage with under-served members of the community. To these ends, SCI-Arc has been awarded a $400,000 grant by ArtPlace to develop two on-campus public performance/lecture spaces, as well as development for a third public venue in the surrounding arts district. Across the street, "One Santa Fe," a 438-unit apartment complex designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA) opened in 2014.

Academics

SCI-Arc offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs accredited by the

National Architectural Accrediting Board The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), established in 1940, is the oldest accrediting agency for architectural education in the United States. The NAAB accredits professional degrees in architecture offered by institutions with U.S. r ...

and the

WASC Senior College and University Commission The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Samoa ...

, including a five-year Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) program, a 3-year Master of Architecture (M.Arch 1) open to applicants who hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent in any field of study, and a 2-year Master of Architecture (M.Arch 2) open to applicants with a prior undergraduate degree in architecture. In addition to its undergraduate and graduate programs, SCI-Arc offers four one-year postgraduate programs in fields including architectural technologies, entertainment and fiction, design of cities, and theory and pedagogy. SCI-Arc's undergraduate and graduate programs culminate in two public events in which students present their thesis projects to renowned critics from around the world, including

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

, Greg Lynn, and

Pritzker Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...

recipient

. "SCI-Arc has long been one of this country’s best experimental labs in which designers speculate about the future of the human-made environment, and its thesis projects are its calling cards."

Public programs

A recent program and exhibition, "LA in Wien/Wien in LA," investigated the architecture of Los Angeles and

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and their respective influences on one another in over the last century. It brought together six esteemed international architects—Hitoshi Abe,

, Eric Owen Moss,

, Peter Noever, and

Wolf Prix Wolf Dieter Prix is an Austrian architect. In 1968 he co-founded the architects' cooperative Coop Himmelb(l)au, which has an international reputation as an important representative of deconstructivism. Life Early life Mr. Prix' father w ...

Coop Himmelb(l)au Coop Himmelb(l)au (A pun meaning ''Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design, and art firm founded by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria in 1968. History Coop Him ...

—to share their perspectives and experiences in a discussion led by

Anthony Vidler Anthony Vidler (born July 4, 1941, in Salisbury Plain, United Kingdom) is Professor at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at The Cooper Union. He is an architectural historian and critic. Education Anthony Vidler received a B.A. and Dipl ...

. The full scope of SCI-Arc public programs includes lectures, exhibitions, faculty talks and other opportunities for interaction between the school and the community.

Notable faculty

The following list contains both current and former faculty: *

Ann Bergren Ann Bergren (7 October 1942 – 10 May 2018) was Professor of Greek literature, Literary Theory, and Contemporary Architecture at University of California, Los Angeles. She is known for her scholarship on Ancient Greek language, gender, and contem ...

Walead Beshty Walead Beshty (born London, UK, 1976) is a Los Angeles-based artist and writer. Beshty was an associate professor in the Graduate Art Department at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, and has taught at numerous schools including University o ...

Aaron Betsky Aaron Betsky, born 1958 in Missoula, Montana, is an American critic on art, architecture and design. He was the director of Virginia Tech's School of Architecture + Design until early 2022. Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale ...

* Mike Davis * Benjamin H. Bratton *

* Hernan Diaz Alonso *

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considere ...

Graham Harman Graham Harman (born May 9, 1968) is an American philosopher and academic. He is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles. His work on the metaphysics of objects led to the developme ...

* Laurie Hawkinson *

Kahlil Joseph Kahlil Joseph (pronounced ''"Kha-leel"'') is an American film, television and stage actor and teacher of performing arts. He has worked extensively in the United States and India. Joseph is based in Los Angeles. Early life Joseph was born in ...

* Ray Kappe *

Elena Manferdini Elena Manferdini (born 12 September 1974) is an Italian architect based in Venice, California, where she is the principal and owner of Atelier Manferdini. She is the Graduate Programs Chair at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI- ...

Lucy McRae Lucy McRae (born 1979) is a British-born Australian science fiction artist, body architect, film maker and TED fellow. Her installations include film, photography, sculptures, and edible and wearable technology. Career McRae uses technology an ...

* David Mohney *

Timothy Morton Timothy Bloxam Morton (born 19 June 1968) is a professor and Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University. A member of the object-oriented philosophy movement, Morton's work explores the intersection of object-oriented thought and ecolo ...

* Michael Rotondi *

Marcelo Spina Marcelo Spina (born July 23, 1970) is an Argentinean-American architect (AIA) and educator. He is a partner in PATTERNS, which is a Los Angeles-based architecture firm. He founded PATTERNS in 2002. Since 2001, he has been a Design and Applied St ...

Michael Stock Michael James Tiberius Stock (born 1971) is a professor of cinema studies and programmer of the cinema series at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Additionally, he is a DJ of the weekly radio show ''Part Time Punks'' on ...

Tom Wiscombe Tom Wiscombe (born April 4, 1970, La Jolla, California) is an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. He is the Principal and Founder of Tom Wiscombe Architecture (TWA). Consisting primarily of unbuilt projects, Wiscombe’s work is ...

Liam Young Liam Young (born 13 March 1979) is an Australian-born film director and architect. Young's work is situated within the fields of design fiction and critical design. Described by the BBC as 'The man Designing our Futures', his work explores the ...

Mimi Zeiger Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles–based architecture and design critic, educator, and curator. She is the author of ''New Museums: Contemporary Museum Architecture Around the World'' (2005)'', Tiny Houses'' (Random House, 2009)'', Micro Green: Tiny ...

Notable alumni

* Barbara Bestor *

Shigeru Ban Biography
, The Hyatt Foundation, retrieved 26 March 2014 is a Japanese architect, known for his i ...

David Randall Hertz David Randall Hertz (born October 6, 1960) is an American architect, inventor and educator. He is known for his work in sustainable architecture and as an early innovator in the development of recycled building materials. Biography David Rand ...

* Sue Courtenay *

Wanda Dalla Costa Wanda Dalla Costa is a practicing architect and professor who has been co-designing with North American indigenous communities for nearly two decades. Her teaching and research focuses include indigenous place-keeping, culturally responsive desi ...

Jon Drezner Jon Drezner is an American architect and designer. He worked with Frank Gehry and Gehry Partners in the 1990s on projects including the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Gehry House. He founded his own architecture firm, Drezner Architecture, i ...

Jeffrey Eyster Jeffrey Eyster (born 1970, Minneapolis) is a licensed architect in California, principal of his firm æ architecture, and a member of the American Institute of Architects. Career In 2007, Jeffrey Eyster designed and built a sustainable wood and g ...

* Gordon Kipping * Ola-dele Kuku * Cara Lee *

Karen M'Closkey Karen M'Closkey is a landscape architect and Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Her artistic and academic focus is the relationship between digital media and landscape architecture des ...

* David Montalba *

Abinadi Meza Abinadi Meza (born 1977 in Austin, Texas) is an American visual artist, sound artist, and experimental filmmaker whose works seek to create "other spaces" for viewers or listeners to inhabit, with a focus on transformation, spatial politics, and p ...

Rocio Romero Rocio Romero (born 1971) is a Chilean-American designer who has designed prefabricated homes in a modern aesthetic, utilizing kit housing to control both cost and offer flexibility for local ordinances. Her rebirth of the kit house was praised b ...

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Southern California Institute Of Architecture Architecture schools in California Universities and colleges in Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles 01 Schools accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Educational institutions established in 1972 1972 establishments in California History of Santa Monica, California Architects from Los Angeles Art in Greater Los Angeles Organizations based in Santa Monica, California Private universities and colleges in California Southern California Institute of Architecture alumni