Cunningham’s Uncanny Sense of Spirituality : Design: Like Frank Lloyd Wright, he looks beyond architecture for ideas, and the result is an emotional power in each of his unique houses.

Architect Wally Cunningham sees architecture as a search for beauty, an escape from the realities of a very harsh world. Though nine unusual houses built from his designs during the past 11 years place him among the most creative young architects in this country, he remains relatively unknown, even in Southern California.

Though a photographer from the international design publication GA wants to shoot one of his designs, a new house under construction in La Jolla, Cunningham’s work, surprisingly, has never been published in the prominent American architecture magazines, perhaps because it doesn’t fit neatly into any stylistic category.

In San Diego, where many architects lean on Mission-style elements or inappropriate historical references in lieu of a strong personal vision, Cunningham’s one-of-a-kind houses come as a much-needed gust of fresh air. They are among the very few buildings here that solve design problems in practical ways while elevating architecture to a high art.

Each Cunningham house is different, but all have certain elements in common. The exteriors all have a forceful sculptural beauty. Cunningham arrives at these forms by carefully observing the shape of the terrain, the views, the personalities and backgrounds of clients, as well as many other details. Rooms are high-ceilinged and floor plans are open. Spaces flow smoothly from one to another without the small doors and narrow hallways that make other houses seem confining. Built-in shelving and cabinets store the paraphernalia of daily living conveniently out of view.

Many of Cunningham’s houses are highly visible. In Cardiff, west of Interstate 5 and just south of Birmingham Drive, is a house he calls “Aperture” that looks from a distance like two colliding triangles, the taller of which rises to a sharp point against the sky.

A wildly different house is under construction on Prospect Street in La Jolla, just east of the village. In this case, the home is made up of rectilinear forms reminiscent of the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe because the client, Bennett Greenwald, is a developer whose father built some of Mies van der Rohe’s most famous Chicago high-rises.

Cunningham seems to attract colorful clients whose personalities add an important dimension to his design work. Developer Chris McKellar, for example, is a surfer who had an oceanfront site in La Jolla, so Cunningham designed a house with wavy green copper roofs inspired by ocean breakers and the curves of a large Torrey pine.

Sayed Ali and his wife are from Egypt, so Cunningham’s design for their La Jolla house, which he calls “The Palace,” includes a soaring roof that spans 220 feet, covering slanted concrete walls and capturing the spirit of ancient pyramids or Egyptian temples.

But there is much more to a Cunningham house than the forms and the way they relate to clients and sites. He also seems to have an uncanny sixth sense, imbuing his designs with a mysterious spiritual and emotional power. The way light enters rooms and plays across forms and surfaces, the way simple materials are gracefully combined give his houses this profound impact.

If any criticism can be leveled, it is that Cunningham occasionally goes too far in his pursuit of ideal sculptural forms, sacrificing small degrees of function. The projecting walls of the Greenwald residence, for example, hide a great deal of the terrific ocean views, although they do provide necessary privacy on this busy street.

Cunningham’s ideas were never shaped by a conventional architectural education. He attended several schools, but never earned a degree. He learned much of what he knows by studying a wide variety of books and buildings on his own and through other architects and artists.

In the past, much has been made of his ties to Frank Lloyd Wright, but Wright is only one of many influences. Cunningham also names little-known architects Kimio Yokoyama and Giovanni Michelucci as seminal influences.

Like Wright, Cunningham looks beyond the realm of architecture for ideas.

“Flowers and other objects that are not architecture are influences,” he said. Thus, the McKellar house mimics waves and the roof of another resembles the wings of a giant bird in flight.

Cunningham, 35, had artistic inclinations early. He was born in Buffalo, N.Y., the son of an engineer father whom he called “cold and calculating” and an “artistic” mother. He spent his teens in Chicago, a city with dozens of Wright houses. After becoming interested in architecture through high school drafting classes, he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and met Marya Lilien, a teacher, architect, engineer and Polish countess.

Lilien played an essential role in his development, giving him his first real tastes of culture. She took her students to museums and plays and invited them to her house to mingle with famous artists and performers.

In the spring of 1977, she wanted to visit Taliesin East, in Wisconsin, where her longtime friend Wright, who died in 1959, had his home, studio and architectural school. Since she didn’t drive, she enlisted Cunningham. A few months later, she gave her promising student an important push toward architecture by encouraging him to study at Taliesin, which is still an active architectural studio.

Backed by friends and relatives’ donations to cover tuition and the tuxedo required for the formal Saturday night socials that were a part of the Wright curriculum, Cunningham arrived at Taliesin West, Wright’s winter compound in Scottsdale, Ariz., in the fall of 1977.

In the spring of the following year, he got another important opportunity and left school.

“Some friends lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Illinois, and their daughter was going to build in Rancho Santa Fe,” he said. “They suggested that she talk to me. I came out, and we went to the site. They told me what they wanted to build on the flat part of the lot. I said, ‘No, build on the hill,’ and I told them how the house should follow the shape of the knoll along the topographic lines.”

Cunningham got the job, and the result was the “Wing House,” with two curving arms hugging the shape of the terrain in a manner that would have made Wright proud.

New commissions began to fall in place. He designs about a house a year, and each year his designs seem to grow more sophisticated and complex. Cunningham now has several houses on the boards at the Mission Hills studio he shares with his three staff architects. As he continues to grow, one aspect of his personal philosophy seems to serve as a thread that runs through all of his work.

“Buildings need to radiate feelings and emotions,” he said. “They’re not just visual.”

On that level, his houses succeed magnificently.