Ray Kappe + Hernan Diaz Alonso: _Duel + Duet_

Ray Kappe, FAIA is an internationally recognized and published architect-planner-educator who has practiced architecture in Los Angeles since 1953. His much awarded and published work is considered to be an extension of the early Southern California master architects, Wright, Schindler and Neutra. He is well known for his work in the ‘60s and ‘70s published in GA Houses 1 and the monograph on his work in Toshi Jutaku 8203. His work of the 1980s and ‘90s has been featured in many of the subsequent GA Houses books, as well as many other national and international journals and books. In 1998 Images published a book written by Michael Webb on his houses entitled Themes & Variations: House Design Ray Kappe. In 2003, a monograph entitled Ray Kappe 1953-2003 was published by the Architecture + Design Museum in conjunction with the Ray Kappe Retrospective exhibit, celebrating his 50 years in architecture, which traveled around Southern California for four months. He established the curriculum and was the first chairman of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the founder of SCI-Arc, as well as its European Program in Vico Morcote, Switzerland, and was SCI-Arc’s Director from 1972 to 1987. He was Chairman of the Board, and a Board member until 2007.

Hernan Diaz Alonso assumed directorship of SCI-Arc in September 2015. A faculty member at the school since 2001, he has served in several leadership roles including Coordinator of the Graduate Thesis program from 2007-2010, and Graduate Programs Chair from 2010 until the present. He has been widely credited with spearheading the transition of SCI-Arc to digital technologies, playing a key role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum. In parallel to his role at SCI-Arc, Diaz Alonso is Principal of the Los Angeles-based Xefirotarch, a multidisciplinary practice praised for work at the intersection of design, animation, interactive environments and radical exploration of architecture. A gifted educator, he has been acknowledged throughout the years with prestigious appointments such as Yale University’s Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship of Architectural Design in 2010, Visiting Design Studio Faculty at Columbia GSAPP from 2004-2010, and an ongoing appointment in the Urban Strategies Postgraduate Program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In spring 2015, he served as Yale University’s Eero Saarinen Professor of Architectural Design.