The thing about architectural models is that they are both the thing and not the thing—a point reiterated across the 150 accumulated texts that make up M³: modeled works [archive] 1972–2022, the recent monographic release from Thom Mayne and Morphosis Architects. M for Morphosis, M for Mayne, M for model, one presumes. About the size and shape of a doorstop, with a large, M-shaped hole carved out of the chipboard cover (yes, the same stuff models are made from), M³offers endless ruminations on the architectural maquette. Models are the world in miniature; models are between the real and the abstract; models are, in the words of twin philosophers Zoolander and Dank Lloyd Wright, “a center for ants.”
Drive down Los Angeles’s Sunset Boulevard and you’ll discover Morphosis Architects’ latest project, a futuristic cube, rising from a strip of lowly fast food outlets. The structure is the West Coast micro-campus for Boston’s Emerson College, and is home to 217 students majoring in television, film, marketing, acting, screenwriting, and journalism. As you draw closer, the solid mass reveals itself as a proscenium, framing a patch of blue sky. The building’s two residential towers bookend open-air courtyards and performance spaces. “Some might say it is an aggressive building, but I see it as rather classical,” says Thom Mayne, FAIA, principal of Morphosis Architects, with offices in Culver City, Calif., and New York. “[The design] is a critique of an institutional building as a big block.” Read More …
Emerson College Los Angeles, the newly opened West Coast outpost of the Boston-based institution, sits on a stretch of Sunset Boulevard that is rapidly changing from seedy to cinematic. The school has strong alumni community in Los Angeles and an established internship program. Designed by Wallpaper* Design Awards judge Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects, the $85 million, 10-storey building-cum-microcampus hosts students majoring in television, film, marketing, acting, screenwriting, and journalism. Read More …