Thom Mayne
Thom Mayne
Thom Mayneis an American architect. He is based in Los Angeles. Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecturein 1972, where he is a trustee. Since then he has held teaching positions at SCI-Arc, the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the University of California, Los Angeles. He is principal of Morphosis, an architectural firm in Santa Monica, California. Mayne received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in March 2005...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth19 January 1944
CountryUnited States of America
Thom Mayne quotes about
I don't know any architects that I respect who don't have their own voice. I think the difference between architecture and the other arts is your immersion in reality.
Architecture is a negotiated art, and it's highly political, and if you want to make buildings, there is diplomacy required.
I think my clients would tell you I'm a problem solver. I'm not there to agree with people. I'm there to articulate a point of view. Am I insistent and tenacious? Absolutely. I could not get this work done if I was not.
I believe that artistic activities change people. You do effect change. I see architecture as a political, social and cultural act - that is its primary role.
It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.
Art in progress. MAK has occupied a unique and valuable space as international host for discourse between the arts and architecture.
So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.
So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.
Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.
The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.
Who I am as an architect and the history of my work - that's clear to anybody who hires me. But I come in literally with nothing in my brain about what the building will look like.
I fought violently for the autonomy of architecture. It's a very passive, weak profession where people deliver a service. You want a blue door, you get a blue door. You want it to look neo-Spanish, you get neo-Spanish. Architecture with any authenticity represents resistance. Resistance is a good thing.
I'm a private person by nature. I live in my brain half the time, not the world, and I'm not a natural negotiator. But I've learned to negotiate.
But often it's doubtful whether the logic of the work itself and the words used to describe it really have anything to do with each other.