Architecture is ultimately a mentorship profession. No matter how much we teach in school, there's a whole other world that you learn in practice, and it's a world that I really, really enjoy. Welcome to our Connects Sessions one-to-one. I'm Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, and this week on the podcast I speak with Los Angeles based architect and educator Tom Whiskom.
In addition to running Tom Whiskom architecture, Tom has chaired the art program at SIRC for the last 10 years, and in 2015 founded the school's liberal arts program. We discussed the evolution of his career through the lens of Southern California, how he prioritizes theory and education and practice, and his dream of a 3D downtown around his ongoing main museum of Los Angeles Project. If we can, we can just start from the beginning. You got your, the art from Cal in the early 90s, and then later after working at Coupe Moolbao for a good, stand-up, like a, maybe five years?
That's right. Move to, go back to school, get a market, you say like, I want to know if you could kind of scrounge up that memory of like, graduating and working, and at what point after working, did you decide this is the time I need to go back to school? What prompted that? So I graduated from Berkeley 92, and I knew that I wanted to move down to Los Angeles, and that that was where, you know, everything was, everything was going down.
In architecture, people were building, there were specific offices that I was interested in working for. And so I, I was, I was, I was, I was going to move down there, and I decided to be aggressive, and I, and I went knocking on doors. And so I literally, I literally went knocking on doors. No one told me that, maybe that wasn't appropriate.
So yeah, actually, I sometimes think how my life would be different if this had worked out, but so the first place I went to actually was Frank Harry's office, and they were the old Santa Monica studio. And if I remember correctly, they had maybe 25 people there, so it was a totally different animal than it is now. And, and I didn't have work. And so then they referred me over to Tom Maine's office and I walked right in, they didn't really have a receptionist.
And I just walked into the studio, which was great, and I met a couple of people, and then they referred me over to Wolfpricks's office. And that's where I landed, and I had a job within like three days of arriving in LA. So it's the least exemplary job employment story. Yeah, yeah.
And quite frankly, I was, I didn't really know at the time that Wolf had an office in LA. It was a little bit under the radar at the time. Now everyone knows that Wolf, you know, has a foot here in LA, but at the time I didn't really know that. And I was a huge fan, so I was really excited about that.
And especially the Open House project was a really important project for me at the time, and it was an undergrad. And so I showed up there, and yeah, and I started working, and we did competitions. And I was really lucky to get to know Wolf pretty quickly. He was around a lot at that time.
He loves LA because it's a kind of freedom when you're coming from Vienna. And so that's, I know one of the reasons, you know, he came to LA, the office was established to run the Open House project, actually. But at the end of the day, the real reason I think is that he wanted, you know, he wanted to come out and have time in LA and kind of free headspace from Vienna. And so he was around a lot, and I got to know him.
And I was very lucky to work on this on the Ufasenema Palace project, which was a competition in 93, and I worked on that with him and others, and we won that project. So I ended up executing it with him, and it was addressed in a multiplex cinema, and it was really exciting. So what were the kind of, were there perceived difficulties or kind of like, because you didn't have this professional degree, and you were coming in as like having this maybe more art practice similarity, and clearly you were engaged in that in his style of work, and also things happening at the main and Gary at the time. But like in terms of just a young student and starting out and working for this firm, I mean, how did you kind of adapt to that?
And how did you feel your skills were actually being able to be put to use at that time? I just tried to learn everything I could in a short time as possible. So, you know, I would go sort of day by day and just figure out, okay, what do I not know in this situation? How am I going to learn it?
And you know, the art practice background was super helpful. I mean, you know, ultimately, you know, my day to day work with Wolf is making models, you know, some very, very small models, hundreds of them to very, very, very large models. It was a lot about making models. And so that was sort of my core, I guess, ability.
And so I could bring that to bear on the work, but really I was just trying to learn. And you know, when we got to the next step in that particular project, you know, I had to call in a lot of favors, ask a lot of questions, buy a lot of books, you know, in terms of detailing the project and, you know, really, you know, going to the next level on it. So, but I feel like I think I was 22 or 23 at the time, you know, we're doing design development on that thing, and it was really exciting, you know, and I just say their day and night until I could figure it out, you know, and ask everyone's help. And I got a lot of help, but I did have to figure a lot of things out on my own, and I was really exciting.
And I enjoyed that. And I think it's, you know, it's a way that we all, you know, we always say this, but it's really true. I mean, architecture is ultimately a mentorship profession. No matter how much we teach in school, there's a whole other world that you learn in practice.
And it's a world that I really, really enjoy. And so that was exciting, terrifying, and all of that. But to come back around your earlier question, I think, you know, I realized after realizing that project that I wanted to get more into architectural theory and get more into discourse. So I realized that I had to leave the office at that point and go back to school.
So specifically went to UCLA at that point because Sylvia was just taking over. So it was right at the beginning of her time there and Greg Lin was there and many other people, Tomain, Bob Solmall, Tony Viddler, I mean, many, many people were there who turned out to be a great influence on me as well. And so you figured I've already worked. I kind of, I realized that I can figure out this mentorship, at least ask the right questions and get to know how to work that way.
But it's much harder than, or it seems sounds like you're saying, it was harder to find access point for theoretical discussions and that sector of the practice. You see, that was what you were looking for when you went back to school. Yeah, absolutely. And knowing the back of my head that I had to have some distance in order to build my own ideas, you know, but yeah, I specifically was looking to get back into the discourse.
Well, how would you describe the Southern California regional theoretical architecture discourse around like the turn of the money? Yeah, okay. This is good. So I just brought this up in my lecture on Monday.
I gave a lecture. Very handy. Yes. And I was trying to think about how to be specific about what it means to be an alumni of a particular time period, rather than just saying, you know, I'm honored to be here as an alumni, which I was, but I wanted to be specific.
And so I realized that that time was really important, not just for the school, but for Los Angeles. And so, you know, at that moment, and it's funny, I was just listening to your podcast with Sylvia Layman. I was going to bring that up. Yeah, I know when that was recently.
I believe a couple weeks ago. Yeah. I just listened to that this morning before I came over here. Exactly.
And I was like, wow, that's just what I was saying on Monday, which was that although I would frame it a little differently, but not totally. I mean, I think that at that time, the West Coast really was really not the center of, let's say, American discourse on architecture. It kind of was the East Coast. And, you know, depending on who you spoke to, I suppose, on the West or the East Coast, but it really was.
At that moment, Sylvia, and also, I would have to add to that also, Neil Denari, who was running Sirek at the time, who's, you know, as well as a practicing architect, he's the public intellectual. I think that between what was going on at Sirek at the time and what was going on with Sylvia and Greg as well coming in to UCLA was now looking back. I think it triggered a huge shift. And I do believe that it actually destabilized the location of discourse.
And it kind of moved to the West Coast where I think it still primarily is at this point. And it's not necessarily important that it's East Coast or West Coast, obviously, it's global at this point. But, you know, once you get a critical mass of a certain number of people with a certain number of ideas, then you do have a community. And I think at that point, that community was established.
And so that was one thing that I thought was really important. And then the other thing I mentioned, which was more about Greg in particular, which was that, you know, he was one of my teachers, one of my studio instructors at UCLA. And it was very notable that we were now in another phase of the digital. It was what I'm calling now, like the digital 2.0, which is where, let's say, digital 1.0 was all about the new tools, the possibilities, you know, exploration, fetishization of new techniques and all this stuff.
And then the 2.0 was starting to drag the computer back into discourse and discipline of architecture. And so when I had Greg as a teacher, he was, you know, the blog existed as a concept, but he was really trying to figure out, you know, how to discretize the skin of the blob into panels. He was trying to figure out how to put apertures in the blob. He was trying to figure out how the blob, the ground.
So he was doing things that I think it was a really exciting time. So it wasn't, you know, I mean, they're all very important periods, but that was the one anyway that I got from him and stuck with me for sure. So I think anyway, the late 90s, I think was a time of a big shift and I think a kind of rebirth of the Los Angeles scene and particularly this community of discourse. So then you had to make a completely oversimplified statement about how we've gone from that to today, where you've since in 2015, you founded SIRAC's Liberal Arts Program, which clearly has a strong bent towards encouraging the establishment of theory as a tenant, as a foundational point of architecture practice and architecture education.
You have Grant Harmon involves in a masterclass and some really exciting stuff coming up. Actually, Nicholas in our office is working on an interview with Timothy Morton right now. We're really excited about it. So we're also really passionate about bringing these conversations in not as, you know, peripheral or post rationalized justifications for like crazy student work, but really like to help inspire ideas and inform best practices.
So can you tell me just a little bit about first of all why you wanted to found the Liberal Arts Program at SIRAC? What was the motivation behind that? Right, right. So there are kind of two pronged attack right now when I'm doing with the BR program.
First, I mean, I would preface that by saying that I think that the five-year vocational model, like the classic BR, I think it's just over. I don't think that that model works any longer, where you basically teach students enough techniques and basic skills that they can get jobs in large offices or whatever. I just don't think that works any longer. It's just not the right time for it.
Because the actual skill set is just too diverse to really... No, I think that now architects have a different role and I think that when we're good, we're acting as leaders and organizers. And I think that in order to do that, you have to have a whole different set of skills, and let's say lower level skills that allow you to perform and fill functions in offices. But I really want to create students who are leaders and who can go out and I don't know interface with the City of Los Angeles and make projects that set precedence or take on really big issues of investment and development and large issues like that and people who can take disciplinary positions and defend them.
So Liberal Arts bringing that into the school. I mean, it was already in the school in the form of general studies, which is part of nav requirements. But really to refocus on that as a major initiative. The idea is that first of all, I think that students need to have college education and we're not a university.
I think that you're an institute and it's always assumed that if you're an institute that you can only do so much and you can't really act like a university, but I don't really see why that's the case. And I think that we now are known enough and attractive enough to people even outside of architecture that we can actually put together a really great group of non-architect experts. And then of course you have overlap with architects who have, you know, who are on our faculty now and also people who are looking at who architects but with other degrees before that, art history, philosophy, other things. So when you put all of that together, basically you start to just, you know, you start to create students who have wide breadth.
They're able to talk about issues of the world that have to do with design but also that have to do with all the other humanities. You know, and I think that's really, really crucial. You begin to connect these points across the humanities, I think, that can ultimately create more inventive design work as well. And so, you know, obviously we're a design school and that's our primary agenda.
But I really think that the work can also really improve from, you know, investing on liberal arts. So as you say, the master classes are one thing that we're doing where we bring in somebody like, you know, like Tim Morton who's coming in about a week and the students will have access to him in a kind of unprecedented way. He'll be around the school for five days, both doing public lectures but then, you know, with the students and also interfacing with faculty members in these master class meetings which are, you know, in the master classes only about 20 students. So you get great access to people like him.
And you know, as you say, Graham Harmon did one in the fall, we're going to be doing one every semester. And you know, and we're also, you know, building our faculty right now and we're kicking off the program in fall of this year. So, you know, I'm hoping that ultimately that it's not just a sideshow to the architecture but I really believe in it. And you know, the way I see is it's something that needs to have the same, we need to have the same bar for that program as we do for our architecture program.
And ultimately, the way in my brain, the way to best make that happen is to imagine that at any moment it could actually be sliced off the school, spin off and become a liberal arts school. So that's the way that we're approaching it. So who besides, I mean, I can see why Tim Morton having certain ecological themes running through his work and Graham Harmon of all Victorian tonnology can these things kind of guess or see why they might be fitted into an architectural discourse. But what are some other either explicit people that you want to be or you're kind of seeking out to be a part of the program or what are some of the ideas that you would want to have someone bring to the program?
Right. Good question. So the most important thing is that the people who we have in, we understand that they're not experts in architecture on purpose, but they, I think the people I really want to have are people who have an interest in architecture so that it's not just ships in the night, but that there's somebody who wants to engage. And actually both Graham and Tim, you know, have written about architecture and architects.
And so, you know, I sought them out for that reason, above all. And, you know, people who were inviting in the future, I can't name names yet because we're in the middle of it, but I can tell you that we're that it's going to be, you know, this year was the year of, yeah, as you say, of philosophy and, you know, Tim is chair of lit over at Rice, actually, so sort of philosophy lit and new models of nature. Next year, you know, we're going to be looking at contemporary art theory and probably mixing that up with something else maybe related to film is very likely, maybe even science fiction. So that's sort of what we have, what we have planned for now.
But the big push for now is developing the community at the school. So again, it's not people just plugging in, but it's a vibrant community on its own, you know, and I would expect that there will be some posia and things like that related specifically to liberal arts issues. So I want to talk a little bit to about your actual work. One of the things that was kind of a big moment in the discourse of LA, specifically LA Downtown architectural development was, of course, the Broad Museum that opened last year.
And I would even go so far as to draw a line between the Mocha's new sculpturalism show and in 2013 up until the opening of the discourse around the construction and the eventual opening of the Broad as this kind of talk about what is going to fit into LA's new downtown image, like what is that about? And you were involved in the show in Mocha. I wanted to talk a little bit about, specifically regarding your design for the Old Bank District Museum, and please share as much as you want or can about what the current says about Project is. But regarding that project in particular, do you feel like that will be another opportunity, much like the Broad was an opportunity to kind of assert this idea of what downtown LA new icons or new image crafting is going to be like?
And are you do you feel like beholden to that? Are you just doing what you normally do? Well, I do have to say, I'm giving a lot more thought to the broader issues of Los Angeles these days. You know, there's been this explosion of, for instance, multi-family construction, multi-family residence construction.
And I'm starting to get concerned about the quality of a lot of these projects up and on the Wilts Recorder, for instance, which I hold in very high regard. I mean, our city was based on Wiltshire Boulevard as a kind of linear connection between the ocean and downtown. And now that downtown is operational again, I think now I'm also thinking about Wiltshire again. And I really believe that Los Angeles is a world city that doesn't know it's a world city.
For whatever reason, something's that happening here politically and in terms of development are not at the level that they could be. And all you have to do is for two seconds compare, you know, the level of development that goes on in cities like London or Tokyo or other places. And I always think like, you know what, we're there, we're for sure there. You know, tech is moving out of Silicon Valley, moving into LA because of the adaptive reuse ordinance in downtown, you know, downtown is developing like crazy.
And what's missing to me is is a real engagement in downtown in contemporary architecture. And the good news is that most of the adaptive reuse has already been done, right? So, so a lot of those old buildings and it's very exciting what's been done down there, but a lot of it's been done. So, you know, in terms of, you know, adding loss and hotels and all of these things that have been going on, infrastructure bars, restaurants, all of that.
But I think that the next stage really is that moment where LA realizes that it can do more to contribute to culture. And one of those ways that it can do it is through contemporary architecture and obviously through the arts, which brings me to the museum. And this is, it's called the main museum of Los Angeles art. And it's Tom Gilmour's project.
It's his brainchild and he is a longtime supporter of the arts. And he actually, he's given a lot of space in downtown, actually, even at ground level to his friends who are artists. And it's very nice and supportive of him over time. And I think that, you know, I don't want to speak for Tom, but he and I have discussed in many times the importance of retaining a kind of foothold of, you know, of culture and of the arts in downtown right at the moment when it seems like, you know, rents are going through the roof, high end retailers moving in at every corner.
And so, so this is a, so there is a desire here to kind of retain, you know, a bit of culture on this corner at fourth and main. So the plan is that it's not a collecting museum, that it's an open gallery. It's, it's mission is to show the work of Los Angeles artists and maybe artists, international artists who've worked in LA. The director is, is Alison Agston, who came from the hammer and she's working with us now.
We're doing it as a kind of team. And yeah, so the project to come way back around and maybe to your question is that, you know, the museum is really about interfacing contemporary architecture with the historical core. And, you know, we're in the banking district. There's some beautiful, historically preserved buildings.
And so, so my approach as an architect is to not go in and just, and just clean everything up. It's to leave some things rough and then go in an episodic way and add pieces throughout kind of the basement vaults of these old bank buildings, ground level, mezzanine levels, and then also all the way up to the rooftops of the building. And I find this really exciting because, because no longer is everything happening at ground, at ground level, but you start to imagine a three-dimensional city where things are happening, cultural activities are happening, two, three levels down in subsub basements of the city, where they're happening up in the sky at multiple levels on rooftops, which is becoming a real reality. Like you can do that now in LA.
And so, so I love this idea of LA becoming a kind of, you know, fully three-dimensional city. I love the idea of overlaying the contemporary on the historical and retaining the historical. And that's the architectural mission, anyway, of the project. So does that mean that the actual image that the museum also presents is one of LA contemporary art?
Do you feel like that is kind of a major goal of the actual, like the icon that is presented by the museum? Well, it is definitely a bit of a non-icon actually. And I would say that in comparison, maybe to the, you know, to the Broad or to other museums, it's much stealthier. By nature of its site, its site is in fact inside underneath and on top of existing buildings, of course, it's a little more stealthy.
But also purposely in the design, we've gone to some length to give glimpses of the pieces that we're doing and never reveal everything in full and to give you hints and sort of a sense of familiarity with lack of familiarity of elements in the design. And so, from street level, you get a hint of a piece of some of the elements coming out over the rooftops, but just a hint. And I like this idea that the museum is fully embedded in, you know, inside of buildings, inside of the fabric of the city. And it's not standing there with like a big, you know, a big billboard advertising itself.
Oh yeah, billboards. I don't think I've ever seen a billboard for a museum in downtown, unless I was kind of like that. Well, they are billboards. So yeah, I mean, I have no problem with icons either.
It's just that in this project has made me think that, you know, and we're specifically calling it a museum, not a gallery, right? It's not a gallery. It's going to be an institution that we're founding with a board of directors, you know. But, you know, galleries oftentimes are hidden, you know, inside of existing buildings.
But this is going to be a museum that's intersecting a functioning set of commercial buildings. And I found that, you know, really interesting to take on as a project. I'm very excited to see what happens in downtown LA in terms of this thing you're talking about, especially with the Pershing Square redevelopment and creating more of these nodes for either future development or just actual creating a different image of LA, whatever that is. Exactly.
And listen, I was just addressing a group of developers at an Urban Land Institute conference two nights ago or last night, no, two nights ago. And I decided I would, I would talk to them about all the holes in downtown LA because I have this sense driving around there a lot, which I do now of all the street, the street parking, you know, surface, surface parking, all over Los Angeles, which is something that you find in a lot of American cities, but in a city like downtown LA, which is, which is really, you know, developing very quickly, it's kind of almost getting shocking where you'll have some grand new project and then nothing, you know. So I went through, I took a Google Earth image and I went through and I drew little yellow arrows pointing at each one of these empty holes and it's shocking. There were thousands of little arrows all over downtown LA.
So I see those at red, those yellow arrows as, you know, as places where now we can discuss infilling with new architecture. Obviously, also coincides with, hopefully, the more removal of cars from downtown or putting them, you know, otherwise, inside of buildings or underground or things like that. But it's a time where I think those things are starting to coalesce and we can have that discussion. And so I was really excited by this.
I didn't know it before I made it, how many holes there are in the city. Opportunity. Yes. So given all this talk about opportunities for development and the open spots in downtown LA, I wanted to ask, do you have an opinion of the upcoming ballot measure, the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative that is happening in LA right now to kind of put a stop to a lot of the spot zoning that is going on in the city that has allowed for some of this development to happen in recent years?
Yeah. Well, I'm basically against this initiative and I don't, I don't fully, understand, frankly, how an initiative like that really can exist in a city that is really now coming into its own. I understand, you know, the issue of many projects in Los Angeles existing by virtue of the ability of architects to get variances and make changes to zoning. But I also think that that creates the life of the city and the difference that we have across our city, the heterogeneity of the way that our city is is based a lot on the way that we're able to negotiate and get projects done.
And I think that right now would be probably the worst time to start shutting down development. I think we're just the beginning of the development of downtown LA. And so I'm actually kind of shocked to hear about this going on. It seems very retrograde to me.
And the only good news about it is that there was a similar initiative up in San Francisco. And that ultimately, although it seemed like there was public support for it, it ultimately failed. And I think that if it failed in San Francisco, it would, it seems very likely that it would fail in Los Angeles. So yeah.
Do you see a kind of regional style emerging in Southern California architecture? Or is that just too generic of a regentine refer to you? Do you think it's more of LA? Just tell me what you think of like the idea of Southern California regional architecture and where that might be going at this point?
I don't think that there is such a thing. Obviously, we all know that practice is international now and you have people like, you know, Herzog and Nameron coming in and building the arts district, you have Frank Gehry building in Paris. I mean, you have everybody building everywhere. But I think what I would want to say more about that is I'm not sure that it needs to have a regional style.
What I think it does need is what we need to make sure we do is maintain very particular cultural buildings and buildings from our history of Los Angeles. Let me protect those. And that may sound funny coming from a person who's, you know, so interested in contemporary architecture. And that's what I do.
But at the same time, I think I would be really concerned if we started to get rid of our heritage. And so I think that's something that's worth holding onto. And again, you know, intersecting that with contemporary ideas, I think is a really good thing. But I don't really think that we have that we have a regional style.
And I guess I'm more interested in the whole variety of niche interests that there are in architecture right now in different generations, too. Mine, ones above me and newer ones below me. I'm really interested in that huge diversity of ideas right now that are coming out of architects. And I would be scared if they were somehow consolidating into a Southern California style.
So no, yeah, I don't really think there is one. So to round things off, even at Sierk for about 10 years now, what do you see the new direction of the school heading and is it a new direction? What do you kind of see as like the next future for Sierk? So I think this is the time for Sierk to get traction in the world.
I think that's the most important thing. We've been working for many, many years on all kinds of speculative topics. And what I'm really excited about now is the school beginning to seriously engage the city in terms of city planning, in terms of building and safety departments, in terms of developers and investors and really start to make a difference in our city as well as globally. So I think that's our mission now.
Well, and Downtown LA is only going to become more scrutinized and more of an absolute center for Los Angeles and cultural productions. It's very exciting to know that Sierk and the arts district in particular. So it's very exciting to know that Sierk is going to be a part of that. So Tom, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking with me today.
Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for listening to our next sessions, One to One with Tom Whisko. And special thanks to Sierk for helping coordinate the interview.
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