Reprinted courtesy of Volume 5:

The LA 12 Revisited
Interview with Bernard Zimmerman
Interview with Mark Dillon -Edit by Joan Hacker

v5: What have been the rewards of practicing architecture?

BZ: I still haven't reaped my rewards yet. I don't know what the rewards are. There doesn't seem to be very many, you meet wonderful people, you love design, you love design people. So the rewards are there, but the amount of effort you can place to meet change or to do architecture, is very, very difficult. Of all the groups I know, and I'm sure its happened to other people, the only one that has really made it, that has been challenged, would be Frank Gehry. I don't know if he is feeling the rewards, he might feel that he still has the next building to do. I heard him speak at Cal Poly Pomona and he said that he still didn't know if he was still avant-garde or not because, someday, someone was going to knock him off, and that he wasn't enjoying his position of being top dog. The rewards are difficult to define, I think its not a rewarding profession in that sense. I think it's a profession of giving and doing, knowing what you can do to make life better for people or how to make it happen. I guess the rewards for me have been the people I have met, I have met some wonderful people. Like Bucky Fuller, Richard Neutra and Eric Mendleson. I have met a lot of good people and that is rewarding. I was just thinking about rewards. Probably the greatest reward that I've had in life is having children and grandchildren. There is a Jewish word, kvell, it means you feel it all inside, I kvell when I think of them. When I think of architecture, I don't kvell as much. I guess I keep having to prove myself, so there are no rewards. There are no rewards or awards. (laughs)

v5: You have been teaching for a long time, has that been rewarding? Most of the names you have spoke of were professional relationships.

BZ: The teaching has been a wonderful reward, teaching is wonderful, and the whole concept of teaching is wonderful. Unfortunately, for me, I don't think I have taught at the right place. I can't make an impact.

v5: At Cal Poly Pomona?

BZ: At Cal Poly Pomona. I have met some wonderful students and professors. Teaching is part of my living. I was talking with someone yesterday, I said to him in a joking way, knowing he was from Israel, I said, "Are you still Jewish?" He said, "Jewish is a way of life, being Jewish is a way of life, it is not a religion." And I was thinking about it, everybody has their jewishiness, because it is how they are brought up. I was brought up by teachers, if it wasn't for teachers, I don't think I would have made it. So the teachers are very important, giving back is important and rabbis were important to me, rabbis mean teachers. The students are refreshing, the young mind is terribly refreshing, I don't know what it is, that the young mind is sort of much better than the old mind, yet a lot of these students just don't pan out.

Pomona has been a disappointment to me, I've put a lot of effort into it, thirty years.


v5: That's a tremendous amount of effort.

BZ: Yes, a tremendous amount of effort. I still put effort into it. You know I get beaten up and am not recognized. It is small things but they add up. I created some of the problems in the sense of the people I choose to be around there and that I didn't make the right decisions in many cases. Yet, on the other hand, I made some good decisions.

If the students could carry the message for me, that would be rewarding. So far they haven't, they are good, but we haven't created a movement, we haven't done really significant things. Probably the most significant thing to me is that I know Frank Gehry, and people think of him as one of the greatest architects in the world. I asked Bob Kramer the question of who are the great architects of the twenty-first century, and he said, "Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry". And I said "Frank Gehry?" and he said, "Yeah, Frank Gehry". He said Frank Gehry made a shift in architecture. You know if Frank continues the way he is going and gets the kind of commissions he is able to do, then he might be that, he might be the architect of the twenty-first century.

v5: You are going to Bilboa, Spain, to see the opening of the Guggenheim Museum that has been built there. Are you excited about that?

BZ: I'm more excited about just being in Spain. Bilboa, from its looks, it is more of the typical kind of things that Frank Gehry does. It is very confusing from what I see photographs of, so I'm excited to find out if its as good as everyone talks about. I had some people tell me it's outstanding and wonderful and some people are saying its not so good. I'm excited; I'm the kind of person who has to be where the action is (laughs), so I'm excited about going to where the action is. I'm just as excited about seeing Richard Meiers Barcelona Museum. I'd be more excited, though, if the Disney Concert Hall that Frank Gehry designed would get built the way he wants it to be, that is what I'm excited about. I understand that building better than I understood the Guggenheim. Its more simpatico and orderly, except the structure, that is not expressive of the outside. So no, I'm not that excited about Bilboa.

v5: What should students learn by reviewing the body of architectural projects that you have completed?

BZ: What should students learn? Well, first of all, I feel I'm just beginning. Secondly, I think there is an order to architecture, and if Jewish is a way of life, “ modernism is a way of life”. They should learn that there is a way of life, and design is a part of that life. Design can enrich that life. Design and architecture help make life. They could learn about the people who went before them and realize that architecture is responsive to man's technology and mans growth and it should relate to that. Plus it should also relate to nature. Neutra always said that, and we will find out as we inhabit other planets or do other experiments in outer space. He said this species of man has to return to nature to revitalize itself, it's like spirituality. You know spirituality is something you need to get through life, I feel, otherwise it is a very sad existence. So what they should learn is that building and nature should relate in some way. They can contrast, be organic, but they must be sensitive to nature and mans needs. I was thinking about that the other day. That if in my life, I only was part of the continuum of the modern movement as we know it, you know, the Walter Gropius' and Frank Lloyd Wrights', that it would be very rewarding, and I think they should learn that. I've been very, very upset lately with the postmodern movement and where it has gone. It has served the developer and the mediocrity of society. For awhile that is where I thought the modern movement was attacked, so I thought the students were doing that all over the place at school and it was very sad for me. Now it seems to be on track. What I would like for them to learn from me is that I'm just part of the continuum.

With me, you always want the son to be better than the father. So I would think if they could be really sensitive to nature and the environment, that would be good. Probably the greatest influence on me was Neutra. Neutra knew how to build with nature. Shindler too, by the way he sited some of his houses, it was remarkable how he just got those things to be right on the site. Just amazing.

Richard Neutra’s Lovell House stands today as one of the greatest works of modern architecture in the United States. It has influenced the generations of architects that build in Los Angeles to this day.

And people are not sensitive to that. I would like the young people to be sensitive. When you say young people, its sort of a joke for me, since I still think I'm young. I've never thought you could be approaching seventy and still trying to do something.

v5: The Neutra Lovell Health House, up in the Griffith Park area, is truly a beautiful building.

BZ: It's one of the great buildings of the century. It's a great building.

v5: Did he ever talk to you specifically about that project?

BZ: One of the last times I was with Neutra, we were at the bottom of the hill, and he wanted to visit that house. So we went to the bottom of the hill and he sat there and looked at it. I think he was proud of it, but felt like he didn't do enough either. He wanted to do more. I think it was within a year or two of his death, as we were sitting on the ground below the house, talking to each other, and I was trying to say to him, because he was writing more, that he should be doing more architecture. But you know they say that every architect has one or two projects and that's about it. (Laughs) Maybe Neutra felt like Ray Kappe, that he did it and he can't beat that house.

I brought the theory of Charles Eames, I guess you should say Charles and Ray Eames, to the market place. We made a lot of money for people and we did a lot of good environments for people.

A lot of commercial work is going backwards, is going back to that playing card table with a table clothe over it and putting the merchandise on top. So, while some people are using high design, to bring people in, others are using low design to make sure people believe they are not being overcharged. I like bringing design to them, I think we did some significant things. The Standard Shoes account, was a very important in terms of graphics, architecture and interiors. Dorman Winthorp, nobody ever saw a discount store look so nice. My planning work was good. Probably the most significant thing that I've done in the importance of the community was working with Jim Pulliam in Old Town Pasadena. That is really a marvel that it even happened. Because it was done thirty-five years ago, when we started. It was even done before the LA 12, (laughs), and it's turned out. Now there is a good example of where you set the parameters and then people carry it through. So somebody should study that and see why that is working and others places are not. Why can you have an Old Town Pasadena that works wonderfully and you can't put Westwood together. Or downtown LA. I would like to work in downtown LA. Most of the planning work we did, Century City, Bunker Hill, we never followed through on the plan. You know you can't follow through one hundred percent on the plan. I guess the other thing I think people should remember is that I'm very active in public service. I think being part of the committee to save Watts Tower is equally important. Watts Tower, Marshal High, Elysian Park. So I think that my life would be fulfilled if I was remembered just for that.

Right now working on Frank Gehry's Concert Hall, I feel a part of it. I just love that building and I don't know why. People tell me I'm nuts, they ask why am I not working on my own stuff. But I am working on my own stuff; it's just not as interesting as that building. It seems exciting to be a part of that building and if it gets built and comes out as good as I think it should, that's fine. The sad thing about it is it doesn't have the right site for such a great building. It's walled in by other mediocre pieces of architecture. But as a building, it could be very, very exciting for the City. So like a piece of sculpture, I like it. So I would like to be remembered for those things.

v5: Where those hard battles, for instance, saving the Watts Tower?

BZ: Very hard. The Watts Tower, I don't know if someone wrote about it, but it was one of the hardest battles ever fought. You know, I was telling Joe Addo the other day, that they actually did not accept that it would work structurally, everything else we won the battle and they would say they are dangerous structures. So they put a crane to the building and pulled the building and it broke the crane. (laughs) You have no idea how long that battle was.

Also John Marshal High School... there are more “temp” buildings in the LA school system than “real” class rooms. This one has been here since WW2 !!

The Arts Community has now rallied around an effort to keep the Watts Towers.

BZ: The City of Los Angeles, the building and safety department. They said it was a danger to the community and it would fall.

v5: They saw no redeeming value to the work?

BZ: They did not see any redeeming value at all. We did get a lot of support though.

v5: Didn't Mies van der Rohe write a letter of support for the Watts Tower?

BZ: I don't remember that, I don't think so. I don't think Mies was bothered with that. But we had a lot of good people. I'd have to go through the names. It was classified as one of the finest of folk arts pieces of the world. Ray Kappe's friends were involved in saving it and there is a very wonderful film, I haven't seen it for a long time, which is on the Watts Towers. But even right now, the NEA, I understand, is going to close, because they don't have a budget. The budget they are giving them is only enough to close them down. Nobody is excited about them. I've been trying to figure out why people are not getting ready for that fight. It's an important battle that we have, the National Endowment of the Arts, and it's wonderful. Probably in the next few months, I will work on that. I try to take the most important issues that are coming forward and get involved with them. I'm very lucky I can do that, I like that fight. Elysian Park is an important decision. Right now I'm trying to get the ballpark out of Elysian Park and put it down into the sports area and return the land to the park space and housing.

v5: Neutra had designed a large housing project in that area?

BZ: It's a shame that it didn't go ahead. But it would probably be in shambles by now. I haven't visited Nuetras' other housing projects that he did during the 1940's and 1950's, but a lot of them were in bad shape. Those things have to be funded. We do not do a proper job for housing in America. We do not take care of people's needs. Neutra told me that he couldn't understand America, and the first slums he ever saw was in America, he never saw slums in Europe.

v5: The history of public housing in this country has been dismal.

BZ: Dismal. Government doesn't know how to do it.

v5: Should Government do it?

BZ: Government does it in other countries. It's been successful. Although they can't keep up with the demand. You know in the social countries there is a five-year waiting list before you get housing. At least they don't do housing with a quality that is hard to take care of. You know its losing proposition, housing. You do housing that is supposed to last a hundred years or so, plus or minus, yet the quality is good for only twenty years. They keep it up, so it reverts to slums because we need that housing. So, we don't have a good housing policy, I don't know who does. There is a shortage of housing in Denmark and I would imagine it's the same in Switzerland and other countries. But if not government, then who is going to make up that difference? In America, if you do start doing subsidy, people play around with the subsidy, and make money from the subsidy. There are no altruistic attitudes about what to do. So we haven't solved the housing problem or the transportation system. People talk about Los Angeles being a dismal city or a problem city. I don't see that. I see Los Angeles as a very young city, totally to be redone. Probably the most important thing in LA is to save some of the quality buildings and housing in the Modern Movement.

v5: What determinants do you consider to have had the greatest impact on Los Angeles?

BZ: The loss of the downtown area for everyone. The Hispanics saved the downtown area, you know Broadway, but it's not a vital place yet.

v5: You once told me you grew up working in Grand Central Market.

BZ: I grew up in the East Side of Los Angeles. During the Second World War there was a shortage of help, so I had a good job when I was twelve or thirteen years old when I worked at Grand Central Market. It was a wonderful place.

v5: It still is today.

BZ: It doesn't have as much character as it had then. You find it a wonderful place today?

v5: Absolutely.

BZ: That's great, because I just loved the Grand Central Market. That's how I got used to junk food, you can't get over it. (laughs) There was a guy selling shrimp in the front and it was the greatest shrimp. I used to sell avocados, three for a quarter. The Bradbury building is a wonderful place. When I was working there, I never knew about that building. It was right across the street; I never appreciated or knew what was going on.

You know you talk about determinants that have shaped LA, I guess because I'm an architect I know a lot about it. The determinants would be the important architects and important architecture. For a city that is so confused and so misdirected, they have had some wonderful pieces of architecture here and wonderful architects. We have been blessed. We are only a city of 200 years, I don't know who the architects were prior to the Nuetras and the Shindlers, but even Maybeck did some work here. These architects have made a direction for LA, I mean Frank Gehry is making Los Angeles known worldwide. Also Tom Mane and Eric Moss. We have a wonderful ocean and we misuse it, we can't swim in the bay. I guess the person who thought LA is such a great area was Ranier Banham, talking about the Four Ecologies. The residential areas are just great. I guess when I think of the determinants that make LA, I think of the pleasure I get from seeing the skyline from Mulholland Drive. That is really an incredible experience. Or I go to the Ray Kappe house and see that. I guess because LA is developing there are opportunities still here. Like who would have thought SCI-Arc would be so successful?

v5: When Sci-Arc broke away from Cal Poly, you were a part of it, you were there. What happened and what are your thoughts?

BZ: What were my thoughts?

v5: For Cal Poly to lose Ray Kappe.

BZ: It was stupid. But Ray feels the system is at fault. What happened there was stupidity. We were building up the school, we went on a search for a chair and Neutra said he would consider being a chair and everyone was excited about it, but it did not happen. Perhaps he was too old to take on that responsibility. So Ray Kappe became the chair, and he was doing a wonderful job. We had a spirit, Ray and I, we were on the same wavelength of education, he's not all design, he knows how to build. And we think that architects should know how to build as well as design. We had what you call a balanced school. The Dean, Bill Dale, was threatened by Ray, I think. It's funny, Deans get in the way when they get threatened, and they try to eliminate people, so they make up stories. So Dean Dale made up a story that Ray wasn't following the rules, that everyone was working for him and we were all working on the outside. All we wanted was a professional school. So the President removed him without due process. I'm a real stickler for that. I was hurt then but not as personally as Ray Kappe was because they actually removed him. So Ray was in the position of thinking that he didn't need Pomona if they didn't want him. He couldn't do anything with the administration. So Audi Laudi and I said, you know, we've got to show support to Ray and we did. We probably had the greatest demonstration in school history.

v5: We have a wonderful story now that is a time line of Sci-Arc.

BZ: I don't think the whole story has been completely told, and probably nobody knows for sure all the parts. Audi Laudi put together a demonstration that was wonderful, and we were going to build this new school, it was going to be called the new school. I told Ray that we should call it that because there was a new school of social behavior in New York that was an avant-garde school with avant-garde thinking. We were thinking of places like Reed College and Black Mountain, the kind of things they did. Ray took the ball and ran. Pomona became a wasteland.

v5: Well, it was dramatically changing, I think the “LA 12 Exhibit” was one of the things that Cal Poly did to try to sort of heal itself and come back into Los Angeles.

BZ: That was done because of a very fine student, Chuck Slert.

v5: So, Audi Laudi had put together a demonstration?

BZ: Yes, he had this demonstration, and we had posters of Ray Kappe all over. We had a good group of professors at that time.

v5: So there was a clear set of ideas that Ray Kappe and yourself had wanted to implement?

BZ: There was a clear set of ideas and the other people coming in were adding the ideas. It was enrichment. Remember, look at the people we had there at that period of time, Glen Small, outstanding, Tom Mane, Jim Stanford, Michael Rotundi, who was a student.

What happened was Ray Kappe had decided to do the school. I think I was influential in that and so were the others in the group. We all decided to resign and start our own school. Or definitely resign on behalf of Ray Kappe. Then we started looking for places to do the school and how to put a school together. Bill Simonian was very helpful in that. We found a place that Ray liked, but they wanted thirty thousand dollars a year and none of us had any money. Ray was willing to take the risk and sign a lease for three years. That's amazing. So everybody was supposed to resign, but the union asked Ray to stay on until they won their case, about due process, and he decided to do it. By the end of the summer, he won his case. About eleven professors resigned. I was the only one who didn't resign. I had just bought a Shindler House; my marriage was in trouble. The bank said that if I didn't have a job, they wouldn't loan us the money. So I stayed. It was really like a betrayal, I had to go back to Pomona. It was just like going to your country and betraying them. I wanted to be at Sci-Arc in the worst way and I went back to Pomona because of economic reasons within the family and the marriage. I also think I was one of the few, besides Ray, that had children. I had three children at the time. I loved having a secure job. I guess the security, the wife, and the Shindler House got the best of me. I had a reasonably successful practice at that time. I stayed and it was really dark. Someone wrote a thing called "There's a great cloud over Pomona." I don't know if you ever read that article. Boy, they tried in the worst way to get rid of me, they did everything. They had mediocre people brought in to take over. We couldn't get that place straightened out.

So, in 1982, I had my second chance to rebuild Pomona and it was a wonderful thing. We did a wonderful thing in those eight years because it was in 1990 when they tore it apart again. In those eight years there was, Sigrid Pollin, Ed Picard, Bill Adams and Kip Dickson.

v5: It was a strong faculty.

BZ: It was a very strong faculty and projects. We were really going. By the time Bill Taylor came aboard, Michael Folonis was the coordinator. By the time that group got going, boy, I thought we were going to knock the pants off any school in the world. The people were good, their positions were good where they were, and their thinking was excellent. It was a wonderful school. You know, I'm of the belief, Ray and I talk about this all the time, you know, everybody works on the curriculum, and they work on this and they work on that, and all these administrators make a lot of fuss over those issues. The real issue is to find good people and let them perform. It seems that everyone that was on, that was good at that time knew what he or she had to teach, how it fitted in to the other and we wanted to do more of that.

Someone was asking me what was the worst thing that happened at Pomona. They said, "Is it the Dean?" I said " Well, the Dean for the school, because he changed, but for a long while he was doing well for me". I was his front runner, but then he was carrying through these other polices, that were from Barry Wassermann. That was perhaps the biggest mistake, Barry Wassermann. He just could not grasp great ideas and outstanding people.

v5: I remember Barry saying that he had always carried out the wishes of the tenure faculty at Cal Poly Pomona.

BZ: Well, the tenure faculty was schizophrenic. What you call creative thinking never got a hold of the tenure faculty. We never had the full votes of the tenure faculty. When we had those vital votes, they were seven to eight and eight to seven, it was a divided faculty. Look what it takes to make a great school, it takes good people and having a power base. There are very few schools that have that. The only one I can think of is Sci-Arc. I mean this is locally, there are some good schools in the East with a lot of tradition.

v5: What would you say the power base of Sci-Arc is?

BZ: The power base at Sci-Arc in the last ten years has been Michael Rotundi. His leadership has been part of the continuum of what Ray Kappe would like. It's not everything that Ray Kappe would like, but it was part of it. Michael took some very strong positions. I just found out that when Michael took over, he had a house cleaning of the faculty there. He got rid of “ some of the social thinkers”. Not that he was opposed to social thinking, but he wanted a certain quality of person there. I think Michael did a wonderful job, he was the power base and Ray Kappe was his advisor. The real leadership at Sci-Arc and he's in the background and hasn't come forward, is Ray Kappe. He got very interested in this last process. You know, Ray, like we all do, shot himself in the foot; he could have made all the decisions for Sci-Arc for the rest of his life. He didn't want that kind of system.

v5: That wouldn't have been good for Sci-Arc.

BZ: Why not? Ray would have made Sci-Arc, he knows how to find talent and make talent.

v5: I understand that. But the school has grown beyond I think, that kind of decision making process that any one person could provide.

BZ: I don't think you're right at all. I don't think Sci-Arc is group decisions other than that they have good people. The group comes together, they try to influence the director, and the director says yes or no. The director is the controlling force there. I'm sure that any director would like not to take on Ray Kappe. I also think Ray Kappe tries to let things go by. Michael had his way and I think he did a very good job. They had a search, and it was a very methodical search. It took too long for me, but they ended up with a lot of good people. It's amazing the people who wanted to be directors could take over schools and make a big difference in education. The Sci-Arc list was incredible. Nobody knows for sure what the new director will do; yet I think he's reasonably respected. Do you know his work? Neil Denard, I mean.

v5: A little bit. I have not met him yet.

BZ: Were you surprised that he became the director?

v5: Well, I thought there were some people on the list that were inside SCI-Arc who knew the school better. But I wasn't that close to the selection process, although I was a little surprised when he was chosen.

BZ: They had Lebeius Woods and Neil Denari on the list and I thought between those two, you get one good person and that's enough.

The question you asked me was "What was the power base of SCI-Arc?" I'm saying to you its Michael Rotundi and Ray Kappe. The way Ray Kappe set it up, the selection process, there was more power in the student and faculty voting. You understand that?

v5: Does Pomona has a power base?

BZ: Yes, Pomona has a power base. Although it's not a very good or strong one in leadership. It could be, but it's yet to come. I would say the power base would be Sigrid Polland with the help of Bill Adams. Michael Folonis is not a power base person because he is not tenure. I would like to consider myself influential and that is why I stay there. I am very supportive of Sigrid and Bill Adams, but I don't know if they are strong enough. Sigrid is very smart and instead of her having confrontations like I do, she tries to find consensus between the groups of say Spiros and Paul. Then we have a strange group of people there that are nice people, but they are not for the educational process that I'm for, the experimental and creative. Yes, Pomona has a power base. You know we have a new Dean and we don't know what she is going to do. Yet I have great hopes for Pomona. I'm hanging in there only because I think I can help in the power base.

Pomona has played a big role for architecture in Los Angeles. People won't give it its credit, but it did. The seeds of SCI-Arc were started at Pomona. If it were not for Pomona, there would be no SCI-Arc. Just think of that.

v5: But in a way that is a sort of damning statement. People leave the Pomona program and develop other better programs rather than develop the Pomona Cal Poly program... Ray Kappe at Sci Arc and Pat Oliver at Art Center..

BZ: I think she's a power base at Art Center, but I haven't seen the thrust of architecture there. You keep telling me it's not an architectural school but one of environmental design. Patricia has done a wonderful job there and she is blossoming at Art Center.

BZ: Not enough for me. The issues that I talk about in the fifties are still the same issues. The profession has gotten worse; there is a lack of ethics and values. Lack of humanism. The biggest change in the profession is computers and I think that going to be a dead end. Everyone is rushing to become computer wise and all that and you get good pay for that. You don't get paid for thinking and conceptual ideas. You get paid because you know how to use the computer; they are like a draftsperson. The biggest change is the way work gets done. It's been in the production, technological field, there has not been a great many new materials. I mean, materials have not blossomed at the end of the nineteenth century, it's a repeat of materials we've had out of the industrial revolution. I remember Neutra was so mesmerized by aluminum, he would use aluminum, or it he couldn't get aluminum because the extrusions were not made at that time for seals, beams, post or mullions, he would paint them silver. So, I don't think we have that many new materials. Building in America has not been very good. I have wanted to get a whole building science group together of lightweight structures like the people do in London.

v5: Do you think that the separation of design architect verses production architect or office advances the building process?

BZ: Yes. Because its too hard to gather all the material and machinery. I was for an idea in the 1950's, I came to the large firms and said, "Why don't we run the large firms like hospitals, then young people could be part of the hospital, they do their small jobs and the big jobs and they are part of the system. Most large firms didn't want that because they could outbid or out fox or undercut smaller firms. There is so much knowledge that has to be transmitted in working drawings, that you need these specialists. Probably that is the biggest change, that it has gone from general practitioner to specialization. So you need that. I would love to be part of a hospital that has the greatest machinery, why should I practice in a mediocre way, at a time when we have all this knowledge. So, the large firms could be these hospitals or design centers, but they are not. They still have a petty way of thinking about business. Perhaps in the next century that will happen. Look at the dignity that you have, you graduate, and you associate with a hospital. You know hospitals don't take everyone, are you aware of that? They look them over and decide which one they want. Then you join the group and you can do your own little work, because it's non-profitable to the big machinery. You have all that machinery and design to do for yourself, but you can process it through the hospital or through the design center. I think that could be a very, very important thing. Today I met a graphic designer who does all his work at his office on his laptop. He could have all the information he wants and all the things he wants from his laptop. He then goes to Kinkos. He says Kinko's upgraded itself. That's his office, Kinko's. When someone says to me today, like on the Wiesenthal Center, "Do you have the insurance, do you have the bonding power?" I said, "No I don't, but I could get a firm to do that."

v5: Is that what happened to your work on the Wiesenthal project?

BZ: No, what happened was a whole mix up of personalities and a vicious developer, a vicious man. It's almost a story of what's going on with the Concert Hall. We will have to find out more about this guy Broad. Is Broad really trying to build a concert hall at an appreciative area of an artist or it he trying to show he's a businessman and he can move the architect around.

v5: As someone who is bringing money into that project, do you think you need to find out the answer to that question?

BZ: Of course.

BZ: Would I? If they kept the purity of the design, that's fine. But I don't want Gehry to step away from it and I don't think Gehry will. How do you like that? I think that if they do a good job, Gehry will not step away. You know, architects have been removed, not so much removed negatively, but someone else takes care of building it, as long as he does the specifications.

v5: You're right. But what they are arguing over is the final cut. Gehry wants design control over the project.

BZ: And I agree with him. But I think there is a way to work it out with Broad. I have no qualms about a client saying, "Listen, that organ costs too much, is there a way to do it for less?" I have no qualms about it. So I have to find out if he is trying to force Gehry in having some personality differences or is it a real thing. I think the guy who brings in the money should have something to say about it. He has the responsibility to the people who have given him the money. Let's face it, they already spent 24 million dollars on architectural fees, 24 million dollars. That's no sneeze. And if you take 24 million dollars and say half of it goes to the architect for his work, that's twelve million and if you say there is a margin of profit of about ten percent, that's a million two. And it's probably twenty percent, because they were paid by their time. Probably three times, not two and half times. So you know there is money to be made off that job. I don't mind that, but by the same token, the client deserves a service. I think they got it, they got a great building. Now what's wrong with the drawings, I don't know. But I'm pretty sure something's wrong with the drawings.

v5: What changes would you like to see in Los Angeles, and do you think architects have a role to play in these changes?

BZ: I definitely think architects have a role to play in these changes. Only the thinking architects. And architects that don't get diluted by the money interest alone. I think we need a mayor that is a visionary and can understand ideas. I think we need to shake up the whole Planning Department of the City and get thinkers into the head of the department. I think this piece meal zoning that the City Council does has to stop. I think we need a comprehensive master plan for the whole area and then break it down into centers. Which Calvin Hamilton, who just died, did.
Glenn Small told me there were only three professionals at his funeral. Here was a guy who found out what the City needed and wanted at the time. I think it took too long for him to do that process, but he wanted to get the people involved, so that they were part of the decision making process. He called it the center concept. We have done nothing on that to reinforce our centers. I think that we have to increase the density of our centers. There is a master plan for a greenbelt system that finally got put together. We've talked about a greenbelt system for years and Bill Fane has put together this system. We need this greenbelt system going through our city if you going to make some real definite changes. For instance, when you go to Boston and see Omsteads Park, you know something was thought about. It's a simple thing, he has this finger park and then it goes into the bigger park. You know that when you go to New York and you see Central Park, you have an idea that focuses around a park. You come to Los Angeles and wonder, where? And Los Angeles has all that potential. There is the River Project, bring the LA River back to some ecological base. What I think you need are some visionaries at the top. For instance, I would probably love to have Ray Kappe, Jim Pulliam, and I run the Planning Department and be on the selection committee of architects and architecture for the City. You need a brilliant person. Frank Gehry would be good too. If Frank Gehry gets through this period the way I think he will get through it, he is going to be very influential in Los Angeles. You know Frank told me, which was an interesting thing and I wanted to find out his concept, he said, "You know the Concert Hall should not have been built where it's being built." That was surprising. I didn't even think about it. He said, "It should be built along Wilshire Boulevard. We should reinforce Wilshire Boulevard."

v5: Do you think the AIA has a role to play?

BZ: Yes, the AIA has a role to play. It's too conservative an organization. I've tried working with it. I've been in the AIA since I was twenty-six years old, which would be over forty-one years.
I've made some contributions and changes that get washed out. You wonder where the ideas went (laughs). I should list those things that I did. The AIA could be very influential. There has to be a new base for the AIA, its too timid, lack of leadership and it bows to politics. It's a wealthy organization, by the way. They are looking for a new executive director, a CEO; the guy gets two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. So you can see they could have some power base, but they don't use it.

Now I tried to bring all the environmental fields together years ago. We don't have enough power bases, the real estate people have a power base, the attorneys have a power base, the doctors have a power base.

The architect has no control of his profession and he doesn't have the power base and numbers to do that.

v5: Do you think the architect has the opportunity of providing the value to projects?

BZ: Yes, there is no doubt about it. For example, do you know of any projects that are outstanding without an architect? An architect doesn't have to be licensed or a member of AIA.

v5: I understand that. I think that when you look at something like the Disney Concert Hall, that's a clear example of an architect providing, not only value but money. Without Frank Gehry's involvement in the fund raising, the rest of the venture probably wouldn't have been able to really go forward. Or if not Frank Gehry, certainly an architect at that level. But most of the buildings that we see go up out there seem as though there is almost no architectural involvement there.

BZ: But there is.

v5: We know that there is, but you can't find it.

BZ: What does that tell you? Something's wrong with the education and the process.

v5: It may be the education or the marketplace.

BZ: The marketplace is wrong. It's definitely the marketplace that's wrong. Architects have to be crusaders and fighters. It wasn't easy for Frank Lloyd Wright. I would like a society that was easy for Frank Lloyd Wright. I remember Frank Lloyd Wright trying to sell his Richmond Bridge and they wouldn't buy it. They got some farchadat bridge now up there. Architects have not taken their position in the political arena. And some of the architects who get into the political arena are mediocre. By the way, I just heard that Richard Rogers is one of the Members of Parliament. I'm very fond of an artist named Max Bill, who is a very find artist, and in his later years he served in the political process equal to our congress. That's very inspiring. We shouldn't leave it to the mediocre architects. That's one of the problems, the architects who are sensitive and design oriented and all, are naïve in the political process. Frank Gehry might be one of the few who break through. Although, by the way he is acting, he could be clobbered too; they could consider him a villain

v5: The Bilboa project is so beautiful and so moving.

BZ: You really like it? You have studied it?


v5: I really do. I'm very anxious to go and see it.

BZ: Well, I trust your opinion.

v5: The reason I'm bring it up is because I hope the momentum that he has from that project will allow for the push in the Disney Concert Hall project.

BZ: Oh, it's happening already.

v5: Thank you Bernard for your help and support of the v5 project. We all hope you keep up the good fight.
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