Lately I've been preoccupied with the topic of successful collaborations, not to say "symbioses", between architects and investors. I've been looking at charismatic designers and clients, especially the fruits of their joint efforts. At various scales: from the iconic Olivetti brand showroom in Venice, to buildings like Teatro Oficina in São Paulo, to entire urban-scale complexes. Flipping through old Rizzoli albums in a series on American deconstructivists, I came across Conjunctive Points, a revitalization strategy for the Hayden Tract post-industrial zone in Culver City. The city is wedged between Los Angeles and Santa Monica.
In the 1920s, it was home to MGM studios and Howard Hughes' aircraft factory. The slow decline of industry that began in the United States in the 1970s led to depopulation and degradation of the area. Factories, factories and assembly plants of various sizes were replaced by criminals and... creatives able to rent lofts here cheaply. Given these realities, Laurie and Frederick Samitaur-Smith began buying up lots here. Coming from a family of industrialists, Frederick had previously made his fortune building office buildings for Silicon Valley's digital vanguard. In Culver City, the Smiths were not after a standard office park. Their ambitions stemmed from Frederick's artistic past, having been a technical assistant to Pablo Picasso in his early youth and later an artist in Los Angeles. After his father's death, Frederick inherited a plot of land in Hayden Tract with an abandoned factory. He rented the building to artists and architects, including Eric Owen Moss, who became a key design partner; together they completed twenty-five buildings. Frederick recalled the early days of his search as he went from studio to studio, looking for an architect who could become an intellectual partner in their project:
Most of the architects I visited in our early days were very arrogant and didn't want to hear about any social values and connect them to their architecture. They had answers for everything. [...] Fortunately, Eric started renting a unit in our building, and I saw that he was reading T.S. Eliot's book "Four quartets" and thought, wow, this guy is not an idiot. [...] When I told him about my ambitions Eric repeated OK, but maybe he just needed a job so he could pay the rent
Social values didn't come from nothing: Laurie was a social activist, committed to improving safety and access to medical care for the poorest residents of the City of Angels. They were both well acquainted with the problems of the southern part of the city, the so-called South Central, to which the northern border of Culver City extends.
The process of transforming the neighborhood began in 1986, when the Paramount Laundry-Lindblade Tower-Gary building was constructed as part of the Conjunctive Points plan conceived by the three. Moss's experimental project, today considered a classic of deconstructivism, attracted companies from the creative and technology sectors, changing perceptions of the neighborhood. However, implementation of the plan was hampered by the race riots that erupted in 1992 after the acquittal of police officers accused of brutally beating Rodney King. Banks refused to finance another development in an area considered unsafe, so the Smiths continued the project with their own funds. Frederick even sold part of his painting collection. That's how another award-winning building from their development company, Samitaur Constructs, housing Kodak's offices, among others, came to be.
The Smiths' goal was to create a space for a community made up of creative entities of all sizes, rather than an anonymous office development. The strategy was based on building a creative cluster: each building combined a large corporate tenant with small businesses, artists, architects and public institutions. At the same time, care was taken to create expressive, often controversial architecture to signal a radical change in the character of the place. Distinctive buildings were created, such as the Pterodactyl, Beehive and (W)rapper, regularly awarded and covered in the media.
The "adaptive reuse" strategy was also an important element - instead of demolition, existing halls and warehouses were adapted, preserving the industrial character of the site. Projects were treated like sculptures shaped without rigid assumptions, which required both courage and a lot of resources: after all, how many investors, architects, managers and builders like to improvise? The key turned out to be constant cooperation with experienced contractors capable of realizing complex forms within budget, forms, it must be added, that were shocking.
The Smiths gradually introduced new functions: first workplaces, then mixed-use development and eventually residential development. This strategy was incorporated into the city's official plans - in 2025 the 2045 Master Plan was passed, turning the Smiths' grassroots initiative into a piece of legislation. Culver City's attractiveness in the eyes of investors and tenants was reinforced by the arrival of two subway stations and a bike path connecting LA to Santa Monica and the beach. The visibility and identity of the place, in turn, was built by Moss' uncompromising architecture.
The project is gentrifying, but without the standard displacement of residents, as almost no one lived in Hayden Tract. The Smiths retain all the properties, controlling the neighborhood's growth and creating jobs as the foundation for the local future. They outsource each new project to Moss. Some time ago I got my hands on a 1981 issue of the Japanese magazine GA Houses, titled "New waves in American architecture," whose editors presented the resulting designs for single-family homes and residences in the United States intended to herald new trends. Of all the figures belonging to one generation who were behind often great projects, only Moss entered the global forefront of architectural authorities with a strong, recognizable style. Of course, his generation produced more original and important American artists of today headed by Steven Holl, Michael Rotondi and Thom Mayne, but their GA did not name them. I dare say that Moss' international career would not have been possible without a forty-year collaboration with a pair of enlightened and visionary developers, which began with a chat over a volume of T.S. Eliot's poetry. What conclusion can be drawn from this? Architects may get commissions because they have stamps, know clerks or because, simply, they can design nice buildings. Sometimes they get an opportunity that changes their lives forever, and fate brings it as a reward for sensitivity and good taste. Let's read poetry, dear readers!
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