The SCI-Arc 40th Anniversary Benefit Dinner & After-Party hosted this Saturday by the Southern California Institute of Architecture on its campus in downtown Los Angeles raised $400,000 to support the school’s mission of educating the next generation of architects and designers. The event’s success strengthens SCI-Arc’s commitment to attract the best talent from around the world.

The benefit dinner celebrated SCI-Arc’s forty years of innovation and architectural experimentation, and the school’s devotion to finding radically new responses to the real needs and aspirations of today’s world.

“SCI-Arc is ageless,” said SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss, who served as the evening’s host along with emcees Tom Gilmore, a trustee of SCI-Arc, and Frances Anderton of KCRW’s DnA.

The benefit dinner brought together hundreds of guests from the worlds of architecture, design, film, politics and education. In attendance were the 4 event chairs and SCI-Arc directors from the past four decades, Ray Kappe, Michael Rotondi (B.Arch ’73), Neil Denari, and Eric Owen Moss, trustees Rick Carter, Joe Day (M.Arch ’94), William Fain, Anthony Ferguson, Tom Gilmore, Scott Hughes (M.Arch ’97), Thom Mayne, Board Chairman Jerry Neuman, Merry Norris, Greg Otto, Kevin Ratner, Abigail Scheuer (M.Arch ’93), Nick Seierup (B.Arch ’79), Abby Sher, and Ted Tanner, honorary trustee Ian Robertson, former councilwoman Jan Perry, city planners Art Beccera, Tanner Blackman, Raymond Chan, Alfred Fraijo, Robert Hertzberg, Director of City Planning Michael LoGrande, and William Roschen, renowned graphic designers April Greiman and Lorraine Wild, CalArts President Steven D. Levine, media and entertainment executives David Agnew and Tim Disney, Linda Dishman of the LA Conservancy, Con Howe of the Urban Land Institute, international architects Stefano Casciani, Peter Cook and Wolf Prix, UCLA Architecture Chair Hitoshi Abe, Barbara Bestor (M.Arch ’92), SCI-Arc chair of graduate programs Hernan Diaz Alonso, SCI-Arc chair of undergraduate programs John Enright, Michael Folonis (B.Arch ’78), SCI-Arc director of academic affairs Hsinming Fung, Elizabeth Gibb (M.Arch ’89), Steve Glenn, Marcelyn Gow, Jackie Greenberg (M.Arch ’95), Margaret Griffin, Peter Grueneisen (M.Arch ’90), Craig Hodgetts, Beth Holden (B.Arch ’98), Darin Johnstone, Jeffrey Kipnis, Sylvia Lavin, Cara Lee (M.Arch ’96), Jeremy Levine (M.Arch ’93), Greg Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Elena Manferdini, Robert Mangurian, William McGregor, Dean Nota (B.Arch '75), Margi Nothard (M.Arch ’92), Nick Patsaouras, Monica Ponce de Leon, Elissa Scrafano (M.Arch ’90), Michael Speaks, Tim Sullivan, SCI-Arc director of advancement Sarah Sullivan, Aaron Sosnick, Marcelo Spina, Dan Swartz, Peter Testa, Russell Thomsen, Laurence Tighe (M.Arch ’91), Devyn Weiser, Tom Wiscombe, Andrew Zago, Stephanie Bowling-Zeigler (M.Arch ’95), and Peter Zellner. 

The program included filmed messages from the four SCI-Arc directors, a special 40th anniversary film screening, and speeches by board of trustees chairman Jerry Neuman, Eric Owen Moss, and undergraduate student Deborah Garcia (B.Arch ’17).

The SCI-Arc building was transformed by an amazing showcase of some of the best student projects from undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate design studios and seminars. The dinner space designed by SCI-Arc faculty member Alexis Rochas featured an array of custom-designed polygonal tables and color-coded tabletops with hues arranged in a unique pattern of syncopated color values.  A large-scale media installation showcased a SCI-Arc timeline streaming across the walls over the course of the evening, alternating images from the SCI-Arc archives, visuals of faculty, student, and alumni work, and snapshots of campus life.

Hundreds of SCI-Arc alumni, faculty and students joined dinner guests for an after-party held outdoors in the SCI-Arc parking lot. The Storm Cloud pavilion designed by faculty members Jenny Wu and Dwayne Oyler of Oyler Wu Collaborative hovered over the after-party. The installation made use of the existing structure of graduation pavilions from 2011/2012, and played off of the contrast between the existing rectilinear structure and a new system of eccentrically curvilinear elements at the bottom of the columns. A new spandex fabric was stretched between the two contrasting frames, creating the dramatic illusion of a transformative and undulating canopy. Complementing Storm Cloud outdoors were The Paths by Alexis Rochas, a set of five self-supporting, semi-circular lightweight structures defined by bold color transitions that linked the dinner area with the after-party.

The proceeds of the 40th anniversary celebration will benefit student scholarships at SCI-Arc.

IMAGE CAPTIONS: (left) Interior shot of the 40th anniversary benefit dinner space at SCI-Arc, photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images; (right) Outdoor after-party space with Storm Cloud pavilion designed by Oyler Wu Collaborative and the boldly colored, lightweight structures The Paths by Alexis Rochas at SCI-Arc Campus, Los Angeles, Saturday, April 20th, 2013.

A gallery of event images is available at Getty Images.