Our guest blogger Jeremy Jacquot ( From www.treehugger.com) attended the Hammer Conversations with Ray Kappe and Shigeru Ban on Oct 18 on behalf of Club of Pioneers. Here is his report on the event.
As somewhat of a Ray Kappe Luddite – having looked up some of his recent projects only a few days beforehand – I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived at the HAMMER Museum to sit in on his conversation with Shigeru Ban. It didn't take long for me to realize just how little I knew about the man – and the incredible portfolio of work he had managed to amass over the past few decades. While I had already been familiar with the ongoing projects he was doing with Steve Glenn of LivingHomes and the guiding role he had played in founding SCI-Arc, it was only during the event that I learned that he gave Shigeru Ban his first big break, that he had worked on several state-level commissions and that he was widely considered to be the chief patriarch of Los Angeles architecture. Even if I had not figured this out, another sign of Kappe's crossover appeal lay, of course, in the sheer volume and diversity of the audience that had assembled to hear him speak. Encompassing a wide range of age groups and professional backgrounds – including students, designers, architects and business executives (just to name a few) – the audience seemed to share more in common with the typical legions of rabid groupies found at sold-out concerts than the staid, respectful crowd I had expected to see. Indeed, were it not for my reserved ticket, I doubt I could've gotten in – the line easily stretching past the length of the building. Whispered mentions of “seeing my first Kappe” flitted all across the room as we patiently waited for the conversation to begin.Following a few brief introductions by Frances Anderton, the moderator for the event and host of KCRW's DnA program, we dived right into the meat of the conversation – Kappe's relationship with Ban, their influences and their views on the emerging prefab/sustainable architecture movement. Having given Ban his first opportunity to take a crack at architecture by accepting him into SCI-Arc, Kappe was visibly emotional as he described their long history and the pride he felt at seeing how far he had come. For his part, Ban credited Kappe for introducing him to the concept of prefab and for instilling in him an appreciation for the type of elegant, simple and minimal architecture he has now become associated with. What struck me was Ban's negative perception of the concept of “green” architecture. He almost seemed to go out of his way to bat down any suggestion that his work constituted what's been widely dubbed “sustainable architecture”. That's not to say he's against building green in principle; anyone even remotely familiar with some of the structures he's built – notably the shelters he helped build in Sri Lanka after the tsunami and those he built following Hurricane Katrina – will know that he only uses fully recyclable, cradle-to-cradle material and that he places a particular emphasis on minimalism. To him, architecture – by definition – should embrace the tenets of sustainability and environmental friendliness, so attempting to typecast or label them as such seemed ridiculous.

Shigeru BanKappe took a more nuanced approach, crediting the growing environmental consciousness for having pushed “green” and sustainability to the fore of design and architecture – a welcome development to a man who'd tried (often unsuccessfully) to incorporate these elements into his buildings in the past – while also knocking the media's fixation with all things “eco-friendly”. He concluded the talk by describing his long-held vision of bringing affordable, sustainable architecture to the masses – criticizing the political climate for having made it almost impossible to achieve – stating that he hoped to continue focusing on prefab housing as a way to eventually bring it to fruition. As the entire audience rose to give him a much-deserved standing ovation – following a few heartfelt tributes from architects (and former students) Michael Rotundi and Thom Mayne – Kappe could only sit and grin, visibly stunned by the level of adulatory praise. Reflecting on the significance of his 80th birthday, Kappe distilled the essence of his life's work into a simple: “It's been fun”.
Jeremy JacquotJeremy recently decided to dump a career in dentistry after realizing that he missed his undergraduate coursework, which focused primarily on marine biology and natural conservation, too much. Having made the full conversion to a green way of living, he's now decided to reorient his studies towards environmental science and will be attending the University of Southern California to obtain a Ph.D. in Marine Environmental Biology, with an emphasis on environmental policy and sustainable management. On his downtime, he enjoys reading about everything business, politics, science and technology and sometimes moonlights as a pundit/op-ed writer.