The Grand Canyons
In the early to mid-20th century, L.A. gave birth to some of the most progressive and successful architecture to date, residential works in particular, from giants such as Greene and Greene, Frank Lloyd Wright, R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra. Los Angeles-based architect Ray Kappe’s work extends this tradition. Kappe has designed about 100 homes around the city in materials that include concrete and steel. But it’s the dozen or so wood-and-glass homes he created in Rustic and other canyons on the Westside from 1968 through 1976, among them his own, that have been called the apotheosis of the California modern house.
“Ray’s own home may be the greatest house in all of Southern California,” says Stephen Kanner, president of the A + D Architecture and Design Museum (recently relocated from Santa Monica to West Hollywood), which is hosting a retrospective on Kappe through Feb. 6. The show includes architectural models and photographs of Kappe projects by both Julius Shulman and Marvin Rand that are up for written auction bidding.
So why have few people aside from architects heard of Kappe, who in 1972 founded SCI-Arc, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, and still takes on about a project a year? “First there’s the man himself,” says Joe Addo, the museum’s vice president. “He’s so humble. In this day and age when publication and publicity are so important to most architects, he’s never really cared about it. And his houses don’t shout at you, ‘I’m sexy.’ ”
Some Kappe homes seem so much a part of the canyon landscape, built as they are from native redwood and douglas fir, that they almost disappear into the hillside, fabulous treehouses for adults. The Rustic Canyon resident liberally uses glass--the other main component--to, in his words, “break down the barrier between inside and outside.” It’s an inspired response to our temperate climate and, says Addo, the outdoorsy Californian lifestyle.
What really distinguishes Kappe’s designs, Addo says, is warmth. “Most modern architects have been accused of creating cold buildings,” he says. “Ray’s is not only architecture, it’s home.” That’s just the point for Kappe. “I’m very into the idea of regionalism, trying to make places more appropriate to their location. People here are rather informal. We were attempting to be much more democratic and open after World War II, and L.A. exemplifies that.”
But SCI-Arc may ultimately be the greater legacy to architecture and Los Angeles. “My vision was one of looking at education as an open system,” says Kappe, now 76. “How would a program evolve if you didn’t set down specifics from the beginning? The key factor was the sense of freedom students had in the process. Today, the school, I think, still has the sense of freedom about it.”
Indeed SCI-Arc, which is housed in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in downtown Los Angeles, has a reputation for embracing experimentation and cutting-edge design. No doubt its graduates and current student body are busy dreaming up L.A.’s next wave of definitive architecture.
A + D Architecture and Design Museum, 8560 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; (310) 659-2445.
