CSUCI Taps a Knight for New Facility

Representing a major coup for Ventura County’s emerging public university, world-renowned architect Sir Norman Foster has agreed to design a state-of-the-art library and media center at the developing Cal State campus.

Foster, recently awarded his profession’s highest honor, is best known for designing a range of high-tech buildings, including a $1-billion bank headquarters in Hong Kong, the new Great Court for the British Museum and Hong Kong’s recently completed $20-billion International Airport, the largest in the world.

Although no formal agreement has been brokered, the 64-year-old British architect already is drawing up designs for the 283,000-square-foot library complex, envisioned as a signature building for the campus under development at the former Camarillo State Hospital.

At this point, the university exists in name only. However, Foster’s collaboration would boost efforts to carve a unique identity for the campus as it evolves over the next two years into a full-fledged, four-year institution.

“I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I tell you that I think he is the world’s leading architect at the moment,” said university President Handel Evans, who plans to meet today with representatives from Foster’s London-based firm to further discuss contractual terms and design concepts.

“From my point of view, this sets a standard that I would like to maintain,” Evans added. “It signals that this university is of significance and will continue to be of significance as we go forward.”

Foster would be asked to transform an old hospital laboratory--a medical unit where doctors once studied mental disorders and performed lobotomies--into a landmark building, one of several Spanish-style structures slated for renovation at the Cal State Channel Islands campus.

It’s not exactly the kind of work--neither in scale nor design--for which he is famous.

Foster has earned a world-class reputation for his towering glass-and-steel structures, which have pierced skylines in cities worldwide and earned him a host of honors and awards.

But it is perhaps his most recent project, the renovation of Berlin’s Reichstag, that offers the best glimpse of his ability to blend the old with the new.

His design for the parliament building, which in April was reinstated as the seat of the German government, was hailed as an emblem of reinvigorated German democracy and considered the centerpiece of a rebuilding campaign to reconstitute Berlin as one of Europe’s great cultural centers.

In recognition of his body of work, Foster in April was awarded the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize, dubbed the Nobel of the profession.

So how did such a big name land in this relatively small architectural pool? A funny thing happened to Oxnard rancher John Broome when he was traveling overseas.

Broome, who this fall donated $5 million to establish the university library, was in England earlier this year visiting the American Air Museum-Imperial War Museum at Duxford, outside of London. After returning home, he was talking to Evans about the trip and happened to mention how impressed he had been with the museum’s design.

Evans, a trained architect himself, told Broome that he knew the architect. He said the two had attended Manchester University together and had kept in touch after graduation.

And then a light bulb went on.

Evans gave his old school chum a call and a few weeks later Foster was touring the budding university near Camarillo, sizing up the library project.

While Foster is not formally on board, university officials said he has expressed great interest in designing the building. Now, officials added, it’s just a matter of when the work needs to be done and how much it will cost.

“I hope we can get him, because I know it would be an exciting project,” said Broome, who is quick to note that he plays no role in the selection process. “He’s got a lot to do out there, but he’s also got a lot to start with.”

It’s too early to tell how Foster’s vision might unfold at the Camarillo campus.

Robert Timme, dean of USC’s school of architecture, said many universities shy away from bringing in big-name architects, fearing a loss of control over the design process.

And too often, he said, such a conservative approach results in buildings that are more functional than they are aesthetically pleasing or important.

“We have this concept of a university being this gothic series of buildings when, in point of fact, that’s actually a terrible image when you stop and think about it--that it’s frozen in time and not open to new ideas,” Timme said. “That’s why it’s so good to have Foster on board. . . . It says that the university is very pluralistic and heterogeneous.”

Foster already knows plenty about working on college campuses.

He has designed a new university campus in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. And closer to home, he is nearing completion in Palo Alto of a 214,000-square-foot Center for Clinical Sciences Research at Stanford University.

Evans said he is not overly concerned about Foster’s ability to come to Camarillo and create a cutting-edge library complex that respects the architectural integrity of the old hospital building.

“Look at what he’s done with the Reichstag, that’s the ultimate remodel,” he said. “I believe Foster is one of those people who can pull it off. He can put a very high-tech modern building inside an older building as well, if not better, than most.”

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Profile of Sir Norman Foster

Age: 64

Birthplace: Reddish, England

Education: Manchester University, School of Architecture; Yale University, master of architecture

Awards and honors: Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1999; American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1994; France’s Academy of Architecture Gold Medal, 1991; knighted by the Queen of England, 1990

High-profile projects: new German parliament, Reichstag, Berlin; Hong Kong International Airport, the world’s largest; Hong Kong and Shanghai banking headquarters; the Great Court for the British Museum; Center for Clinical Sciences Research at Stanford University’s Medical School

Quote: “I believe that the best architecture comes from a synthesis of all the elements that separately comprise a building; the structure that holds it up; the services that allow it to work; the ecology of the building--whether it is naturally ventilated, whether you can open the windows, the quality of light. . . . I think that holds true whether you are creating a landmark or deferring to a historic setting. Successful architecture addresses all these things and many more.”