Art Center’s optimist

In a conference room in the hills above Pasadena, Richard Koshalek opens a Monday morning meeting reading horoscopes to senior staff. But the president of Art Center College of Design doesn’t need stars to predict hectic days ahead.

On the agenda is a three-day international design conference to inaugurate Art Center’s new South Campus on Raymond Avenue -- a $15-million expansion into a gritty, industrial corner of downtown Pasadena, miles from the rarified views of the hillside campus.

After five years on the job, Koshalek wants to take the college down from the hill. Art Center “was built on design and business, and that’s what I think we have to go beyond,” he says. “If we don’t, design will continue to be marginalized.”

Koshalek has long been a high-profile player in L.A. arts and architecture, and while collaborators laud him for his energy, some critics say his aspirations aren’t always grounded.

As part of his ambitious plans for Art Center, Koshalek is changing the curriculum of the 74-year-old college -- which offers degrees in advertising, design, film, fine art, illustration and photography -- to introduce humanities studies. Staff members have attended U.N. conferences, and the college is involved in a project to design villages for AIDS orphans in Kenya.

He wants Art Center’s 1,200 students to be split-screen thinkers, addressing both design and social issues. The school, which has an operating budget close to $49 million, also has dual responsibilities, he says: “What we do in the classroom and what we do as an advocate.”

Koshalek, 62, is on the road almost two weeks every month -- Chicago, Boston, New York, Japan and Switzerland so far this year -- wooing partners for the school, tending alumni relations, asking for money. So far, he has raised close to $29 million of the $75-million capital campaign, which also includes funds for scholarships and education.

His (rarely used) office is dominated by a conference table and Le Corbusier chairs. A framed note from artist Richard Serra sits on a shelf next to a portrait of a young Frank Gehry. Koshalek hasn’t committed to hanging anything; stacked on the floor are a framed Gehry sketch and a Tadao Ando poster.

If Koshalek shows an exceptionally high interest in architecture, that’s because he was headed that way before he got sidetracked by art.

The Wisconsin native studied art history and architecture at the University of Minnesota. He began his career as a curator at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and directed the Fort Worth Art Museum and the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y., before coming to the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1980 as the second in command. Two years later, he was named director of MOCA.

While at MOCA, he worked with Gehry on what would become the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo and with Japanese architect Arata Isozaki on the Grand Avenue building. Later, he chaired the architectural selection committee for Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“Richard is an optimist,” says art philanthropist Eli Broad, who recruited Koshalek to MOCA. “Optimists don’t achieve all their goals, but they get a lot more achieved than pessimists.”

Restlessness an ‘asset’

These days, one goal for Koshalek is a proposed hillside expansion, including a library and technical skills building. The project was launched three years ago with Gehry and Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza. In February, Siza was fired from the project -- and that fueled rumors of cost issues and discord. Gehry denies reports that he and Siza were “butting heads.”

Reached in Portugal, Siza says he enjoyed working with both Gehry and Koshalek. “I’m not angry with anybody,” says Siza, who was asked by Art Center to revise his original design to make it less expensive. “If there’s no money to do it, I understand.”

Gehry says that Siza made “a beautiful design” and that he is trying to get him back on the project. And Art Center officials say the project is moving ahead, although the money hasn’t been raised yet.

“His aspirations aren’t always completely realistic,” independent curator Julie Lazar says of Koshalek. “It causes a lot of institutional stress.”

But Lazar, who worked with Koshalek at the Hudson River Museum and later at MOCA, credits him with putting both museums on the map. During his tenure at MOCA, he raised eyebrows with the 1984 purchase of the Giuseppe Panza collection. At the time, some criticized the acquisition because Panza sat on the museum board. Others said the $11-million price tag for the 80 works of Abstract Expressionist and Pop art was too high. But as the art market shot upward, it began to look like a bargain. On the rare days Koshalek spends entirely on campus, his schedule is often packed with meetings. On this particular Monday, he’s coordinating a design conference at which Gehry, Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Charles Elachi, Nobel Prize-winning biologist and Caltech President David Baltimore, comedian Sandra Tsing Loh, sleight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay and others would talk about creativity, design and the future. More than 500 people paid $1,000 to attend.

Throughout the day, he scribbles notes in associative patterns, using four colors of ink. He doesn’t use e-mail or even touch computers. “In another age, he would probably have been an Arctic explorer,” says Erica Clark, senior vice president for international initiatives. “His restlessness is also his greatest asset: He will constantly seek out other points of view. He will constantly question.”

Gehry puts it another way: “He’s the Energizer Bunny personified.”

But that trait has a negative side.

“I’m not able to enjoy life for today,” Koshalek says. “It’s always, ‘What’s next?’ ”

Daylight hours filled

The following day begins at 7:30 a.m. with a breakfast meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Pasadena and won’t end until midnight -- with yet another walk-through of the Raymond construction site. After breakfast, Koshalek takes the first of the day’s visits to the 20,000-square-foot Raymond building, which will house the school’s public education programs. Originally an aircraft testing facility, the new building was designed by Santa Monica-based Daly Genik Architects and includes exhibition spaces and a rooftop garden by Nancy Power, creator of the Norton Simon Museum gardens.

“Who’s going to pay for all that?” he jokes. The foreman, who is leading the way, shudders: “Don’t say that.” Outside Raymond, there’s a slab of wet concrete. “Where do I put my initials,” he asks. (Later that night, when showing the building to Doug Aitken, Koshalek balks when the artist challenges him to leave his imprint in the slab.)

In a construction trailer, he makes a Kenya conference call to discuss fundraising for the Nairobi villages. “The Gates Foundation might be interested. I know Bill Gates Sr. -- not Jr. -- and I’m going to talk to him later. Shall I mention it to him or not?”

Seeing ‘blue sky’

Later in the week, Koshalek is scheduled to meet with Thom Mayne at the site of the new Caltrans headquarters in downtown L.A. Koshalek was co-chairman of the jury that selected Mayne. As they prepare for a walk-through of the site, the architect fetches hardhats and calls Koshalek on vanity when he refuses to wear one. “I can’t wear it,” he says. “I get a headache.”

When Koshalek dashes off to another meeting, Mayne answers the question: Is Koshalek a frustrated architect? “It kills him,” he says. “He was trained as an architect. But you know there are a million architects and just a handful of people like Richard.”

On a crisp morning a few days later, it’s off to another construction site. Architect Kevin Daly and Koshalek stand on the roof of the Raymond building.

It’s a groundbreaking of sorts. Koshalek wants to make the first cut for the massive skylight. Wearing a harness and wielding a chain saw, he cuts through the roof as a crew of workers applauds.

Back on the ground, Koshalek looks up, admiring his handiwork. “I sawed a pretty good piece,” he says, before heading off to lunch at the California Club. “There’s blue sky up there.”