Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
ity and creative problem solving. It doesn't paint narrow definitions of what
the role of an architect is.” That creative freedom appealed to him. He
began to experiment with materials and grew captivated by concrete. “In
architecture school I started to use concrete in an unusual way, to make
models,” he recalls.“That was looked at in a somewhat negative light at that
point.” Concrete became his medium of choice for projects including
sculpture and furniture:
I started to play with concrete, based on the experience in construction. I started
to make some furniture pieces. The first piece that I made using concrete was [an
adaptation of] a coffee table I had inherited. It had a really nice glass top, but an
ugly wood base. So I took some scrap wood and built a little form, and then I got
a four-dollar bag of ready-mix concrete and poured it in my driveway. I stuck the
glass into one end of the concrete, which then allowed for the glass to cantilever
quite a striking distance.
Subsequently, I started to exhibit the furniture, really as functional art. That was
in the early 1980s, when Memphis, the design studio in Milan, Italy, was getting a
lot of attention, and the concept of art as doing functional things and architects
doing art became possible.
While continuing his apprenticeship with Lautner, Hertz became associ-
ated with the Whiteley Gallery in Los Angeles, participating in several
group shows. His first solo exhibition of furniture and drawings was
installed in the historic Schindler House. It was an appropriate setting: the
1922 home of the Los Angeles architect Rudolph Schindler (who also had
worked with Frank Lloyd Wright) was constructed of Schindler's preferred
building material, concrete.
Hertz's training at SCI-Arc included a 5-month program of travel and
study in Europe in 1982. There he developed an appreciation for classical
and Gothic architecture. He also visited every building by Le Corbusier and
studied with the Italian architect Mario Botta.
Returning to the United States for his fifth year of training, Hertz
expanded his experience through an internship with another internation-
ally acclaimed California architect, Frank Gehry. Winner of the 1989
Pritzker Architecture Prize, one of the profession's highest awards, Gehry is
probably best known today for his design of the Guggenheim Museum in
Bilbao, Spain. His projects defy traditional forms and materials in creations
that are both functional and witty. Gehry's fundamental belief is that archi-
tecture is art, and he approaches it with the eye of a painter or sculptor.That
