Thom Mayne Lecture

This lecture was recorded on September 28, 2015, in Timken Lecture Hall on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts as part of the Architecture Division Lecture Series.
Thom Mayne founded Morphosis as a collective architectural practice engaged in cross-disciplinary research and design. As design director and thought leader, Mayne provides overall vision and project leadership to the firm. With permanent offices in Los Angeles and New York, the firm currently employs over 50 architects and designers.
Mayne’s distinguished honors include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the AIA Gold Medal (2013). He was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2009, and was honored with the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles Gold Medal in 2000.
With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture Awards, over 100 American Institute of Architecture Awards, and numerous other design recognitions. Under his direction, the firm has been the subject of various group and solo exhibitions throughout the world including a large solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2006.
Morphosis buildings and projects have been published extensively, and the firm has been the subject of 25 monographs.
Throughout his career, Mayne has remained active in the academic world. In 1972 he helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture. Since then he has held teaching positions at Columbia, Yale (the Eliel Saarinen Chair in 1991), the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Eliot Noyes Chair in 1998), the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and many other institutions around the world.
A symbiotic relationship has always existed between Mayne’s teaching and practice, evidenced in his concurrent position as executive director of the Now Institute at UCLA, a research and design initiative focusing on applying strategic urban thinking to real-world issues.
He has been a tenured professor at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design since 1993.
Generous support for CCA public programs in San Francisco has been provided by Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.
The 2015-16 Architecture Division Lecture Series is funded by Kimberly and Simon Blattner; International Interior Design Association (IIDA); Pfau Long Architecture; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; Jensen Architects; John Marx / Form 4; Perkins+Will; SmithGroupJJR; Blasen Landscape Architecture; Harley Ellis Devereaux; Jim Jennings Architecture; Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects; Stanley Saitowitz | Natoma Architects Inc.; ARCH Drafting Supply; Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture; Boor Bridges Architecture; Cary Bernstein Architect; TANNERHECHT Architecture; and Tucker and Marks, Inc.
Learn more about CCA's Architecture division:
www.cca.edu/aca...

[@patrickdobson-perez4753]

big up the mayne

[@kevinskingnew]

+Patrick Dobson-Perez HaHa

[@speckswim32]

Make America Mayne Again.

[@jessedelgado457]

such a cool lecture.

[@trollala_555]

Thom claims his buildings are under the budget. Doesn't it cost more if you use so much steel to achieve those forms and that type of cladding rather than a not-so avant garde design? If somebody please explain this to me how we was able to achieve it. I'd appreciate it thanks.

[@johnnylee8194]

When a person is required to takes only humanities classes in college (architecture degree in US is all combination english, history& art classes in college to graduate. Highschool kid heading to JC takes more STEM classes) and pontificates as much as Nobel Prize winner, how do you respond to that? Dilusion.

[@santiagojaviergarciamanso491]

What are the architects he mentions on 10.00? Pierre Koening? and the other? Thanks

[@trollala_555]

mies van der rohe, louis khan and le corbusier

[@santiagojaviergarciamanso491]

thanks

[@josefkay5013]

I have to say I find it really difficult to understand what architects are ever talking about

[@trollala_555]

just this one and a few. most you can understand.

[@davidmilner5442]

he's using a lot of architecture jargon, but also covering some really complex ideas. morphosis, for better or worse, has adopted a completely unique design process, which makes it quite difficult to explain

[@jennyhirschowitz1999]

Depressingly ugly….. structures unfit for habitation or anything else, regardless the hype and the $$$$$$$.