‘From the Inside Out’ Is Architect Kappe’s Pattern

“What we wanted, of course, was the building to metaphorically express its function,” architect Ray Kappe said. He was referring to the Santa Monica bus administration facility he designed a few years ago with Rex Lotery and Dean Nota.

And, indeed, when glimpsed from the 5th Street exit of the Santa Monica Freeway, the streamlined, two-story steel-coated structure with its curved corners and horizontal fins looks very much like a large bus, sleek and on the move. (For a more contemplative view of the facility, try 7th Street just north of Olympic Boulevard.)

But as most projects in which Kappe has been involved, the look of the building is secondary to its function. The bus facility was designed to adequately serve those who work there and to conserve energy. For example, in addition to looking sleek, the dark blue horizontal fins marking the windows on the south facade provide protection from the heat of the sun, while reflecting its rays for natural lighting indoors.

The bus facility, going back to an expressive Machine Age architecture, was the first stop I made recently on a tour with Kappe. We were reviewing select projects sprinkled across the Los Angeles cityscape that the architect designed by himself and in association with various other architects during the last 35 years.

There have been various dinners and receptions this summer honoring Kappe on his retirement. As founding director and head of the Southern California Institute of Architecture for 15 years, he guided the progressive Santa Monica-based school to a position of prominence and respect in the world of architecture eduction.

While Kappe has won much praise for his educational efforts in stressing a more socially responsive and responsible architecture, he considers himself first and foremost a practicing architect. Indeed, his resume lists nearly 100 completed projects and 22 honors, the most recent being a merit award in 1985 from the California Council of the American Institute of Architects for the Santa Monica bus facility.

And though he is retiring from teaching, Kappe is not retiring from architecture, and as a young 60-year-old has opened an office with his two sons, Ron and Finn.

As he moves on to devote his energies full-time to architecture, I thought it would be interesting to tour a few of his projects that are among the more accessible.

One of his earlier designs was a six-unit apartment complex at 10565 National Blvd., in the Palms section of West Los Angeles. The view from the street only hints at the delicate post-and-beam 1954 design. A peek up the stairs into the courtyard reveals a soft modernism with Japanese tones that has persevered well over the years.

More forceful in its play of horizontal and vertical volumes is the three-unit condominium at the north corner of Ocean Front Walk and Hurricane Street in Venice, which Kappe designed in 1973 in association with Herbert Kahn and Rex Lotery. And while the massing of the structure might look arbitrary, the architect explained it was based on trying to maximize the ocean views from within the units.

“I design from the inside out,” Kappe added. “My main concern is how a building works for the user and relates to and incorporates its surroundings.”

Examples of this approach can be seen in the striking glass-and-redwood houses he designed as part of a hillside at 715 and 739 Brooktree Road in Rustic Canyon; a singular residence at 533 9th St. in Santa Monica; and a sweeping structure now under construction at 16th Street and the Strand in Manhattan Beach. He designed the latter in association with Dean Notta.

A few of the more public projects Kappe was involved with can be seen in downtown Inglewood. There, in the 1970s, he was a member of the firm of Kahn Kappe Lotery Boccato, which designed a city services center, a water-treatment plant and the rehabilitation of Market Street and Morningside Park.

Despite its unengaging function, particularly engaging is the water- treatment plant at Eucalyptus and Beach avenues, engineered by the firm of VTN. What the plant does is explained through the use of supergraphics and the coordination of assorted bright colors that can be read easily from the street.

A nicely scaled and detailed example of Kappe’s commercial designs of the 1970s is the bank and office building at 647 Brighton Way in Beverly Hills.

“We stepped it up from the street so it would relate well to both pedestrians and the neighboring buildings, and still create an interesting space inside,” Kappe said.

If there is a consistent quality in Kappe’s designs, it is that they are site sensitive and user sympathetic. It is a quality that Kappe has pursued in his teaching as well as in his designs, and mark his contribution to Southern California architecture.