Mapping Out Designs for the New Century

Richard Koshalek always has a public mission. And that hasn’t changed since he became president of Art Center College of Design seven months ago. Energetic and charismatic as ever, he is beating the drum for Pasadena’s art school, just as he did for Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art for nearly 20 years.

“I’m unbelievably optimistic about the future of schools like Art Center and the work that creative people will do,” he said, over a cup of coffee in the college cafeteria. “They will no longer be isolated in universities and museums; they will be front and center, as critical problem solvers.”

A native of Wisconsin, Koshalek directed the Fort Worth Art Museum and the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y., before coming to Los Angeles and MOCA. He arrived in 1980, when the museum was still on the drawing board, and directed the museum from 1982 until his resignation last summer. As the institution grew from a dream to a reality, he became known as a visionary advocate of contemporary art with a keen interest in architecture and design.

A hands-on curator as well as an administrator and fund-raiser, he conceived several architecture exhibitions, including “At the End of the Century: One Hundred Years of Architecture,” the huge traveling survey now concluding its international tour at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary. On view through Sept. 24, the show was curated by Koshalek with former MOCA curator Elizabeth A.T. Smith (now chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago).

But even as the homecoming of that major project draws Koshalek back to the museum, the 58-year-old administrator is thoroughly involved with Art Center. “I’ve found a home,” he said.

And quite a prestigious home, at that. Lodged on a wooded hilltop overlooking the Rose Bowl, in a modern glass and steel building designed by architect Craig Ellwood, the 70-year-old college bills itself as “the nation’s leading art and design school.”

Offering academic degrees in advertising, film, fine art, illustration, photography and environmental, graphic, product and transportation design, Art Center produces more than half of the world’s car designers and innovative leaders in other fields. With an annual operating budget of $43 million, the school has about 1,300 full-time students and more than 350 instructors, most of whom are practicing professionals who teach part time.

But Koshalek didn’t move to Art Center just to keep the wheels greased. “The school has been in neutral and it needs to move forward,” he said. Working with the school’s board of trustees, he has laid out his vision in an itemized plan and he hopes to accomplish several goals by 2005, the college’s 75th anniversary.

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His first priority is to make sure that an Art Center education will be relevant and useful in a rapidly changing world. “Art Center is not just an educational institution; it’s a research and development and educational institution,” he said. “We are using the school to solve problems creatively, so the students will know how to proceed in the real world.” One exemplary project already underway is an open-air student lounge, designed to fill students’ requests for a forum and meeting place.

Finances are also high on Koshalek’s list. In addition to increasing support from current sources--including corporations that sponsor student projects--the school will launch a capital campaign for $100 million to $150 million. The goal is to build the endowment and scholarship fund and to establish special endowments for creative initiatives by the school’s 75th anniversary.

Expanded facilities, which have been under discussion for several years, are another concern. In need of more space for the library, interdisciplinary classrooms, technical equipment, exhibitions and public programs, the school will either add a satellite facility in Pasadena or sell its building and move the entire operation to downtown Los Angeles, Koshalek said. Architect Frank Gehry--whose design for Disney Hall was ardently promoted by Koshalek--is already working on preliminary plans. A decision on the site is expected after the first of the year.

Koshalek also wants to “boldly position the college at the center of national and international dialogue in design and visual communications.” The explosion of digital communication has created a democratic exchange of information in design as well as other fields, he said, so it is imperative for Art Center to have a global presence. Three college representatives are currently on fact-finding missions in Europe and will travel to Asia in May, with a goal of exchanging ideas and setting up partnerships with educational institutions and other organizations all over the world.

“We are looking for people who are doing things that scare us,” Koshalek said. “If somebody is doing something in car or product design that is more advanced than what we are doing, we want to work with them, no matter where in the world they are.”

He also envisions the college as an advocate for art and design. To that end, Koshalek is setting up a “comprehensive media plan” that could include the publication of a new magazine and textbooks, the development of a television program and more extensive use of the school’s Web site.

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Friends of Koshalek who witness his enthusiasm with amazement often say he could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. Undaunted, he cites his favorite example of the new power of design and global communication: Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

“It would have taken decades for that building to be recognized worldwide at the beginning of the century,” Koshalek said. “That building was a breakthrough; it was an instant icon. It functions extremely well as a museum, but what it’s really about is city building. Frank took a city in transition and gave it international recognition almost instantly through a work of architecture. That’s the kind of impact design can have, when it reaches that level of quality and excellence and originality.”

Koshalek announced his resignation from MOCA with no thought of becoming president of Art Center. But when the opportunity arose, he didn’t hesitate. “I am very fortunate to have a chance to take another step with creative people,” he said. “The original concept of the school was to test original ideas in the real world, to bring art to industry. Now we can continue that tradition in a larger sphere.”