By OUR TOWN BY TED WINTERER
I, of course, rely on the Daily Press as my primary source of news. But I’ll quickly scan other local rags in case the crack staff at the Press missed an item of significance.
So the other day I came across an interesting piece in the Los Angeles Times about Frank Gehry being named the lead architect for the enormous Grand Avenue development in downtown LA. The July 22 article noted that this news suggests “we’ve entered an era in which ambitious developers are not just open to the notion of working with architecture’s boldest talents but... are desperate to avoid working without them.”
Apparently this laudable trend has escaped the attention of Santa Monica’s most ambitious developer, City Hall itself, as our new public buildings are, at best, conventional in their design.
The Times article also observed that Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain “proved that progressive architecture can itself operate as a kind of urban planning — that if a new building is enough of a draw, it can revitalize a city or region as effectively as the most comprehensive master plan.”
I can attest to this as I once had an office in the Gehry-designed Edgemar building on Main Street. Tourists throng to the place, spending their yen and francs at local businesses.
On the other hand, I drive by the new Public Safety building at least once a day and have yet to see visitors gawking at it and snapping photos. And I somehow doubt that when the new Main Library is finished it will attract crowds of admirers.
Why in Santa Monica can’t we build public structures which transport the soul and animate streetscapes? One reason is that City Hall selects designers for many of its public works by issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for design-build development teams consisting of an architect and a contractor. The theory behind this practice is that builders will control those kooky architects from a free-spending whimsy. However, if you look at the cost overruns in recent city buildings you might suspect the theory is sounder than the practice.
The problem is that the design-build approach rarely produces truly great architecture. Most contractors are unlikely to partner with an innovative but unknown architect and instead will team up with the golfing buddy who made them a mint designing a shopping mall, resulting in a public building that looks like, well, a shopping mall. Few builders would have allied themselves with local Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne when he was known mostly for some innovative residences and the Kate Mantilini restaurant.
And architects are certainly capable of working within a budget without a contractor riding herd on them. One only has to look at Mayne’s Caltrans building in downtown LA to see evidence of daring design built with controlled costs.
Then the RFP process also drastically reduces the number of talented architects who are likely to submit a proposal for a public project, for the city’s means for publicizing its RFPs are inadequate.
First, City Hall sends out RFPs to firms selected by staff. If you aren’t on this list of the same old suspects chances are you’ll never know the city is soliciting bids. Consequently, city contracts seem to be awarded to familiar names like the ROMA Design Group and Moore Ruble Yuddell with the same regularity with which the Bush administration turns to Halliburton to solve problems ranging from the budget deficit to Laura’s latest hangnail. Shouldn’t there be a greater range and diversity in the designers offered the chance to imagine our new public spaces?
True, the city also will run a couple of ads in a local paper and post a notice on its Web site. But unless Rem Koolhaas is sitting in a cafe in Rotterdam surfing the ‘Net and browsing through the LA Times, he’s not going to know about a potential commission in Santa Monica. And as city officials seem loath to advertise their RFPs in more sensible places, such as the AIA online newsletter available to all licensed architects, a large proportion of talented designers will be left out of the loop.
Finally, many brand name architects won’t bother to respond to RFPs, for the same reasons Bill Gates doesn’t reply to solicitations for a Visa card: They don’t need to. If you really want them, you have to pick up the phone and court them.
Essentially, our town solicits bids for public architecture the same way the Pentagon procures new weapons systems. If the Medici had operated this way, Florence wouldn’t be what it is today. (Ted Winterer is a writer who lives in Ocean Park. In his next column he’ll offer some notions on how to create great public buildings in Santa Monica. He)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 5, 2005. Read the original PDF.