Developer Tom Gilmore pledges $1 million to SCI-Arc

Developer Tom Gilmore has made a $1-million planned gift to the Southern California Institute of Architecture to support the school’s first endowed chair.

Gilmore, a member of the SCI-Arc board of trustees since 2001 and a key player in the renaissance of downtown L.A. over the last two decades, has pledged $1 million from his estate to help create the Gilmore City Chair, a faculty position dedicated to urban studies.

Planned gifts aren’t realized until the death of the donor. And in the case of Gilmore, who is 60, that could be many years from now.

The real news in the announcement is not the gift itself or its size but rather that it’ll be earmarked for research and teaching on urbanization (in Southern California and around the world). That subject has sometimes been neglected at SCI-Arc, a school known in recent years for a focus on digital design and fabrication.

Gilmore will give a lecture at SCI-Arc on the evening of Feb. 13.

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