Moss, Eric Owen 1943-

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MOSS, Eric Owen 1943-

PERSONAL:

Born July 25, 1943, in Los Angeles, CA. Education: University of California at Los Angeles, B.A., 1965; University of California at Berkeley, M.Arch., 1968; Harvard University, M.Arch., 1972.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Eric Owen Moss Architects, 8557 Higuera St., Culver City, CA 90232-2535; fax: 310-839-7922. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, director and professor of design, 1974—; Eric Owen Moss Architects, Culver City, CA, founder, 1975—. Eliot Noyes chair, Harvard University, 1990; Eero Saarinen Chair, Yale University, 1991. Lecturer at University of Michigan, National Building Museum, Pratt Institute, Rice University, Dallas Museum of Art, and other institutions. Exhibitions: Work has been exhibited at Queens Museum of Art, Max Protetch Gallery, and Venice Biennale.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Institute of Architects AIA/LA Award, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1988, 1990, 1991, and 1992; Architectural Record Interiors Award, 1984; Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Design Award, 1984; AIA/CC Award, 1986, 1988, and 1991; National AIA Honor Award, 1988, 1989, and 1992; Award in Architecture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999; AIA/LA Gold Medal Award, 2001.

WRITINGS:

Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects 1, introduction by Wolf D. Prix, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1991.

Eric Owen Moss, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1992.

Lawson-Westen House, 1995.

Eric Owen Moss: The Box, 1996.

Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects 2, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 1996.

Eric Owen Moss, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2000.

Gnostic Architecture, 1999, Monacelli Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects 3, Rizzoli (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Eric Owen Moss is an architect and director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture. His buildings are, according to David Bryant in Library Journal, "jaggedly of our time: twisted metal, glass in arrangements that look lethal, concrete serving as cheap permanent mass, and wood as a random accent." "Moss," Thomas Fisher explained in Progressive Architecture, "is a master of the non sequitur, joining things that seem unrelated to reveal deeper affinities." Writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Leon Whiteson described Moss as "one of a group of … Los Angeles architects who have won international recognition for the boldness and verve of their designs." Moss has designed buildings around the world, including in southern California, Havana, Vienna, London, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

Moss is especially known for his collaborative efforts alongside real estate developer Frederick Smith to revitalize Culver City, California, an industrial town with old factories and warehouses. Moss often converts these existing structures into new buildings for different uses. The Pittard Sullivan headquarters in Culver City incorporates a brick wall and the bowstring trusses from the factory that once occupied the site. "There is a lively dialogue between old and new," as Michael Webb described the building in Interiors. "A tilted cylinder serves as a lofty entrance atrium; a tilted cube as a second-floor conference room." The Culver City headquarters of the Gary Group made use of existing warehouses. Jayne Merkel in Art in America described the design: "Moss has cut apart concrete block warehouses … to insert offices; he covered them with various odd-shaped skylights and hung chains, wheels, Plexiglas panels, pipes and a sloping extra wall on the outside."

Describing his approach to architecture, Moss writes in his book Gnostic Architecture that it "is not about faith in a movement, a methodology, a process, a technique, or technology. It is a strategy for keeping architecture in a perpetual state of motion." Moss's buildings, as Andrew Ballantyne wrote in the Times Literary Supplement, "look like acts of insurrection. They celebrate the possibilities of particular circumstances, take advantage of unique opportunities, are concerned with the 'here' and 'now' of their inception and development.… They have the appearance of robust practicality and cultivated imperfection."

Moss has presented his designs in a series of books that also offer his reflections on how and why he designed them. The first of a series, his Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects was described by D. P. Doordan in Choice as "one of the best new books on contemporary radical architecture." Doordan praised Moss for explaining "complex ideas in a clear and evocative manner." "Throughout the book," Fisher noted, "there echo the existential dilemmas of our times—the loss of certainty, the death of religion, the impossibility of universal truth."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

de Boissière, Olivier, Eric Owen Moss Architecte: Lindblade Tower and Paramount Laundry, Reconversion à Culver City, Californie, USA Demi-Circle (Paris, France), 1991.

Steele, James, Eric Owen Moss (interview), Academy Group (London, England), 1992.

Steele, James, PS: A Building by Eric Owen Moss, 1998.

PERIODICALS

Architectural Record, February, 1997, Suzanne Stephens, "Eric Moss's Samitaur Building, His Latest Project in the Culver City Section of Los Angeles, Plays against Type," p. 52.

Architecture, January, 2003, Bay Brown, "Eric Owen Moss Architects," p. 34.

Art in America, February, 1994, Jayne Merkel, reviews of Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects, pp. 33-38.

Choice, May, 1992, D. P. Doordan, review of Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects, p. 1383.

Interiors, September, 1998, Michael Webb, "Pittard Sullivan," p. 84; October, 1999, review of Gnostic Architecture, p. 86.

Library Journal, April 1, 2003, David Bryant, review of Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects 3, p. 95.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 12, 1992, Leon Whiteson, review of Eric Owen Moss, p. 6.

Progressive Architecture, August, 1992, Thomas Fisher, review of Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects, p. 77; January, 1995, "Ince Theater," p. 104.

Times Literary Supplement, May 29, 1992, Andrew Ballantyne, review of Eric Owen Moss: Buildings and Projects, p. 16.