DIGS is the premiere luxury real estate lifestyle magazine serving the most affluent neighborhoods in the South Bay and Westside of Los Angeles, California.
Issue link: https://www.southbaydiggs.com/i/226629
[ R AY K A P P E | W H AT M A K E S A L E G E N D ] In case anyone's counting, visitors to Ray Kappe's mid-1960s residence in the Rustic Canyon neighborhood of Pacific Palisades number in the several thousands. His home has been featured in museum exhibitions, received numerous prestigious awards, and even starred in a couple of popular television series. But the house's storied status cannot overshadow the fact that it was designed by Kappe himself, who is considered a living legend by architectural cognoscenti around the world. At 86 years old, the founder of the groundbreaking Southern California Institute of Architecture (known as SCI-ARC) is not content to rest on his professional laurels. He is currently busy working on a private residence in Beverly Hills and a Los Angeles SBD As the founder of SCI-ARC, what was your motivation for breaking away from conventional architectural education? RK At that time, 1972, the idea of allowing as much freedom and student involvement in the development of the school made it possible for us to become an unusual learning environment. I think it influenced other architectural programs nationwide. In 1998 I received the first Distinguished Alumnus Medal in Architecture at UC Berkeley, and I remember being introduced with the statement that I had changed architectural education. condominium project that will feature a large-scale screening room on the ground level. South Bay Digs was recently granted an exclusive interview with Kappe, who shared his Starting SCI-ARC gave me the opportunity to explore architectural education in an thoughts on everything from environmentally friendly design to the unique challenges open-ended manner [without] the typical administrative oversight that one would Southern California's urban landscape poses to architects today. have in a university. As founding chairman [of the Department of Architecture] at California State Polytechnic University, I had the opportunity to develop the program with the typical constraints, and even though it was a more conventional program, I SOUTH BAY DIGS How did you choose architecture as a profession? Was there was able to explore new ideas. a specific moment in your early life that inspired you, was it more of a gradual evolution, or a little of both? At SCI-ARC we were able to use a college-without-walls concept. We intended to use the whole Southern California area as a learning laboratory with an emphasis on the RAY KAPPE When I was very young I drew a great deal and took art lessons at the individual student. With fewer students, 75 to 125 in the first year, education could Walker Art Institute in Minneapolis until I was 12 years old. My favorite subjects in be more personalized with greater flexibility and more options. Through the use of school were math and science, and I thought I would become an engineer. But in interdisciplinary seminars, community leaders and educators from all areas of study my junior year of high school I read an article about architecture that described the were brought to SCI-ARC to impart knowledge in the behavioral sciences, ecology, traits necessary for that profession, and I realized that my early love of art and my economics, philosophy, politics, history, literature and the arts, exposing students to later preference for math and science would probably be a good combination for the broadest spectrum of thought. becoming an architect. 76 ARCHITECT | DESIGN | BUILD 12.13.2013