Thom Mayne Joins SCI-Arc Board of Trustees

LOS ANGELES--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) today announced that 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis has been elected a SCI-Arc Trustee. “Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. “His addition to the board is indicative of the fact that the school continues to re-imagine the content of architecture.”

“Thom is an incredible addition to the team at a time when SCI-Arc is reaching new levels of academic achievement with a Board striving to meet ever increasing levels of excellence.”

The Board, chaired by Jerold B. Neuman, elected Mayne at its quarterly board meeting held last week. “Thom is an incredible addition to the team at a time when SCI-Arc is reaching new levels of academic achievement with a Board striving to meet ever increasing levels of excellence.”

A product of the anti-establishment of the 1960s, Mayne was among seven faculty members and approximately forty students who left Cal Poly Pomona in 1972 to create SCI-Arc, “a college without walls.” Since then, he has been a frequent guest, juror, lecturer and generous supporter of the school. As SCI-Arc prepares to turn 40 next year, Mayne’s appointment to the Board of Trustees, effective immediately, complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth both physically and programmatically.

Founded as an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and rigorous research, Mayne’s firm, Morphosis Architects, was formed in 1972, the first year of SCI-Arc’s history. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture awards and over 100 American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards. In addition to co-founding SCI-Arc, Mayne has remained active in academia. He has held teaching positions at Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Cal Poly Pomona, SCI-Arc and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. He is currently a Distinguished Professor in the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design.

About SCI-Arc

The Southern California Institute of Architecture is dedicated to educating architects who will imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited degree-granting institution located in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in Downtown Los Angeles, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. SCI-Arc’s approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members—most of whom are practicing architects—work together to re-examine assumptions, create, explore and test the limits of architecture. Recently, SCI-Arc was ranked second in design and computer applications in the 2011 America’s Best Architecture Schools survey from DesignIntelligence. www.sciarc.edu