Mayne co-founded SCI-Arc in 1972

LOS ANGELES, CA (April 4, 2011)—The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) today announced that 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize winning architect Thom Mayne of Morphosis has been elected a SCI-Arc Trustee.

“Thom Mayne is the quintessential SCI-Arc architect,” said Director Eric Owen Moss. “His addition to the board is indicative of the fact that SCI-Arc continues to re-imagine the content of architecture.”

The Board, chaired by Jerold B. Neuman, elected Mayne at its quarterly board meeting held last week. “Thom is an incredible addition to the team at a time when SCI-Arc is reaching new levels of academic achievement with a Board striving to meet ever increasing levels of excellence.”

A product of the anti-establishment of the 1960s, Mayne was among seven faculty members and approximately forty students who left Cal Poly Pomona in 1972 to create SCI-Arc, “a college without walls.” Since then, he has been a frequent guest, juror, lecturer and generous supporter of the school. As SCI-Arc prepares to turn 40 next year, Mayne’s appointment to the Board of Trustees, effective immediately, complements a series of events that have prompted the school’s growth both physically and programmatically.

Founded as an interdisciplinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and rigorous research, Mayne’s firm, Morphosis Architects, was formed in 1972, the first year of SCI-Arc’s history. With Morphosis, Mayne has been the recipient of 25 Progressive Architecture awards, over 100 American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards and numerous other design recognitions. Under his direction, the firm has been the subject of various group and solo exhibitions. Drawings, furniture, and models produced by Morphosis are included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco MOMA; the MAK in Vienna; the Israel Museum in Jerusalem; and the FRAC Centre in France. Some of his best-known commissions include the Caltrans Building in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Federal Building, 41 Cooper Square—The Cooper Union’s new academic building in Manhattan, the Phare Tower in Paris and the FLOAT House—a pre-fabricated housing prototype—in New Orleans.

In addition to co-founding SCI-Arc, Mayne has remained active in academia. He has held teaching positions at Columbia, Yale (Eliel Saarinen Chair in 1991), Harvard Graduate School of Design (Eliot Noyes Chair in 1998), California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, SCI-Arc, Berlage Institute in the Netherlands, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and several other international institutions. He is currently a Distinguished Professor in the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design.

Mayne holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California. He and his wife, Blythe Alison-Mayne, who holds an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, make their home in Los Angeles.