More Change in Store at SCI-Arc

Neil Denari will leave his post as director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture in June, completing the terms of a five-year contract that began in fall 1997. The 44-year-old architect said Wednesday he wants to return to his growing architecture practice. “I don’t want to overstate it. It’s not like I have 12 high-rises to do, but it’s certainly much more than I had [when I started] in terms of client relationships, dealing with situations and having multiple projects at one time.”

Denari’s decision to leave comes at a time of transition for the cutting-edge architecture school. It has just moved into a former freight depot on the east side of downtown Los Angeles, where the windows aren’t even caulked yet. For the past year, since the school moved from its rented facilities in Marina del Rey, it has operated out of a huge tent and several trailers on the site. Denari led the institution through the moves and is said to be well-liked as a teacher by faculty and his board. Nevertheless, as an administrator he recently received a vote of no-confidence from some faculty members.

“Neil is still beloved,” said L.A. architect Michael Rotondi, a SCI-Arc faculty and board member who was also a student and the school’s director from 1987 to 1997. “They may not have confidence in him as a leader, but that’s not the case as a family member. They’re just taking one of his stars away. His strength is the respect that he has among the students and faculty, and I think he’s just a really decent, honest person. He just hit the wall in a couple of areas. But I think it’s worth a lot that he’s been able to guide the school downtown. He wasn’t dealing with very easy people in the negotiating process.”

Many hope that SCI-Arc’s move to the industrial neighborhood will be a catalyst for a downtown revival, and its reputation as a top architecture school is not expected to be adversely affected by the administrative shifts.

Frances Bronet, president of the Assn. of the Collegiate Schools of Architecture, which represents all accredited schools of architecture in the U.S. and Canada, said “SCI-Arc’s reputation is unimpeded” by these changes. She said that a major physical move is not unusual for such an institution and that five years is considered a substantial amount of time for a directorship.

SCI-Arc is a privately funded school and derives 90% of its finances from tuition and the rest from endowments. Denari said he hopes to add to the endowment. Applications for the current year were up, but maintaining that high regard is key in securing a strong financial future.

Denari has a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University and previously worked at New York’s James Stewart Polshek & Partners. He taught at Columbia University as well as schools in London, Tokyo and Amsterdam and SCI-Arc. He opened his practice in 1988, and current projects include a new 14-story New York condominium-loft building and renovation of a new store for L.A. Eyeworks. He said he may return to teach at SCI-Arc at some point.

He admits the task of leading SCI-Arc was challenging, although he welcomed the opportunity. “On a human level,” he said, “it’s sometimes been overwhelming, but we’ve all kept our wits about us and kept things together.”

Denari declined to go into specifics about the no-confidence vote, but of his meeting with three of those faculty members, he said: “If there was consternation or disagreement about ideas or forums on the school, that’s really been going on since I started here, to varying degrees. And that’s part of the school and part of my job as director. In a funny way, it’s all very welcomed, because that’s how you get to the next level. There was no animosity, and it was not confrontational. Maybe there were some philosophical differences, but that’s par for the course.”

Some prominent local architects connected with the school, including Rotondi, Thom Mayne and Eric Owen Moss, were aware of the internal goings-on, but give Denari credit for fulfilling the school’s major goal of finding a new location.

Ray Kappe, an architect and board member who is also the school’s founder, said, “There was a change in the academic structure that [the faculty] didn’t approve of. He was going to be evaluated during the fall semester anyway [an established procedure for directors], and in the interim he decided not to go on. Most everybody likes Neil, but there are people who want the school to go in different directions. We’re looking at this as a very positive time, a good time to have a new director.”

Moss, a Culver City-based architect who’s been on the school’s board of directors for 22 years, said: “It [the school] takes risks, it does things that anyone with a level head wouldn’t do, that’s its history. Denari was an excellent choice. He took on the biggest job and made a very important contribution. There may have been people who didn’t like his style, but I think the move substantiates his tenure.” ***

Since SCI-Arc is not bound by the same constraints as schools attached to larger universities, such as UCLA or Harvard, it can be more flexible and also less stable as a result: “Its resiliency and ability to move and maneuver also makes it vulnerable,” Moss said. “If it makes the wrong move it’s hard to recoup. What you want to do is make it strong enough but not give up that dexterity.”

That’s why, according to Santa Monica-based Mayne, who helped found the school, the director “has to be a conceptual design leader and fund-raiser and counselor. What’s expected of you is just tremendous and requires a mountain of effort and a commitment.”

Though the search for a new director has just begun, Mayne and Moss said they’ve had informal talks with school officials about possibly taking over. Mayne said he’s happy in his practice and teaching; Moss said, “I think there’s a possibility I would do it, if the community supported it.”