Architect Jeffrey Kalban, 70, learned the art of designing buildings with some of last century’s star architects – I.M. Pei, the Chinese-American creator of the Pyramid at the Louvre Museum in Paris; and locally, William Pereira, who designed the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Kalban opened his own firm in 1982, and made his mark conceptualizing master plans and designing buildings at private schools, including the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks, Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City and Viewpoint School in Calabasas. Other notable projects are the South Building at the Getty Center, Technical Center at Toyota Motor Corp. USA headquarters in Torrance, the Animation Guild in Burbank and Warner Center Park Pavilion in Woodland Hills. Kalban spoke with the Business Journal at his Sherman Oaks office about buildings versus architecture, painting and sculpting and a future vision for Sherman Oaks. Question: How did you get a position with I.M Pei’s architecture firm? Answer: I was fortunate enough in the summer of 1967 to get an internship at I.M. Pei’s office in New York City. So, when I went in there for my (job) interview, I wasn’t going in blind. Why did you want to work there? When I graduated in 1969, I.M. Pei was about the biggest rising star in architecture at that time. I was offered a very nice position at Skidmore Owings & Merrill in New York City, and I turned them down. At some firms, it’s kind of obvious where they’re going – this is how they approach it (architecture) and they always approach their buildings the same. But back then, I.M. Pei was different. Their approach was very impressive. Do you have some good stories about working there? I’m very young, and working on the National Gallery of Art in Washington , D.C. And I am told to draw up some details. They showed me, “this is how we’re going to support the stone, and the corners are going to be overlapping.” So I draw that up. I’m looking at it, and it doesn’t work. I look at this thing and I say, “These are all brilliant people; it has to work.” I went to somebody else in the office who was way above me, and on another team, and I said, “This doesn’t’ seem right.” And he said, “Let me see. You’re right, it doesn’t work.” So, I went to the associate partner in charge of this. And I told him, “This doesn’t work, but what if you try this …” And I gave him some suggestions. How did that work out? I’m at some gathering going into a meeting. And I hear this fellow, who’s a very senior associate partner, and someone said to him, “So how is this Kalban kid working out?” And he said, “Really well.” And he told him about the corner – that I solved this corner for him. It gives you a lot of confidence. How long were you at I.M. Pei’s office, and why did you leave? I was there about two and a half years, and left when I was 24. I left because I bought myself a big stone to carve. TITLE: Owner, president COMPANY: Kalban Architects EDUCATION: Bachelor of Architecture, Ohio State University CAREER TURNING POINT: Befriended Stephen Rountree, vice president at the Getty Center. MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE: I.M. Pei, William Pereira PERSONAL: Resides in Sherman Oaks with wife, Maria, and daughter Jennifer. HOBBIES: Painting and sculpting What made you do that? I met, on one of my walks in Manhattan, a famous Japanese sculptor who was sculpting outside a huge piece of granite. And I would stop and I would chat with him from time to time. He was teaching me how to sculpt. I bought small pieces of stone, and I would sculpt them. I got somewhat proficient in it, and then I bought a big piece of stone. I said I’m going to learn how to sculpt stone by hand. That’s why I’m going to need a year to sculpt this piece of stone. How did you end up in California? Maria, who is my wife, was finishing up at UCLA. I decided to move out here to be with her – with the vision of sculpting on the beach in Venice. But I came out here and realized I had to make a living. And the rock I was moving out with – I had to dump it off someplace before I crossed the desert because the car was overheating. So, I just dumped it off at a gas station someplace in Texas. What was it like working for William Pereira? Bill Pereira was a great mentor, because at that age he had gone through his really aggressive years when I gather he was a kind of a tyrant in his office. I would sit with Bill in the evenings and we would chat, and he would tell me his approach to architecture. And he would challenge me terrifically. He would tell me about something that would need to be designed and I would argue, “Why? You don’t want to do that.” And he said, “Either you do it, or someone else does it. You want to control it, you design it.” Then we would talk about why does it have to be designed, and he taught me to design from the inside out – from the users’ perspective. So how do you approach a project? When I see a design opportunity, I look at it from a rational perspective, but then I look at it from, “How do make it into something really special?” A very romantic image, but then you have to solve the problems to get it built. What problems? You have all the forces that every other building has on it – I don’t just mean gravity and rain. You also have codes and zoning and budgets. All the things coming together, and you have to make it buildable. And you learn from these masters how to argue your points, how to get people to understand the importance of the design. It’s not caprice; it’s not just done for the hell of it. It’s done because it fulfills a certain concept and that concept has to be valid. What happened when you opened your own firm? I opened my door. The phone didn’t ring. I said, “Maria, call my phone. I don’t think it’s working.” Slowly, I started to build up a client base. It just felt right. Even after 35 years, I question myself if it was the right thing to do, or should I have gone back to Bill. But it’s a whole lot of great work. What is one design that is a good example of that? The Curtis School – where we created a courtyard that created a place for students to gather, but it also happens to be where the fire trucks have to turn around. No one knows that – it looks like a place where students gather. But pragmatically, it had to solve a problem. And then they had to raise money, so we said, “Let’s call it the Arts Court.” Everyone loved it and donated money. Why have you focused on schools? Because they’re fabulous to design. You need to design for happenstance – those areas where kids can gather and teachers can gather unexpectedly with children; where they can have study groups, great gathering areas like auditoria or gymnasiums, and drop-off and pick-up areas. All that excitement. To see kids running through space you designed with pure abandon – (that means) it’s working. How have your buildings changed students’ behavior? At Marymount High School, a girls’ high school in West L.A. right across from UCLA on Sunset, we got the cars, which were always going through the center of the campus, out of there. And it changed the culture of that campus overnight. When they came back to campus next year, there were no cars. It was a whole different world. What were some turning points in your career? I met a gentleman by the name of Stephen Rountree who was a vice president at the Getty Center. He and Curt Williams, who was in charge of construction at the Getty, were very adamant that our building had to show the Getty board of trustees that they could build within a budget. We had to come up with some very clever solutions that made the building even better. Steve Roundtree was also on the board of the Curtis School and put us on the list of architects to be interviewed for that project. And we persevered and got that project against some very big-name firms. And that got us into designing schools. Then Curt Williams left the Getty and went to USC and brought us over there to do a project, which led to a couple others. Any other turning point? When I had left the Pereira organization, I had designed the Toyota Motor Corp. headquarters in Torrance and it was under construction. And I stayed in touch with Kent Smith who was in charge of their national real estate program. And we designed a fountain. And that fountain led to a suggestion box, and that suggestion box led to a clock, and that clock led to some planters, and the planters led to throw-in buildings. And throw-in buildings led to a building in Orange County that needed to be remodeled, and then a brand new building in Orange County, and that led to a building in San Ramon, which led to a building in Cincinnati, which led to buildings all across the country for Toyota. What attributes of your personality make you a good architect? Tenacious, diplomatic, pragmatic. I’m a good listener. I’m a team player. I’m a twin – when you’re born a twin, you’re automatically a team player. What was it like growing up with a twin? I’m a male twin. We’re fraternal. It was great. You always had a friend with you to play with. You always had someone to fight with, because I always believed you couldn’t play for too long without having a fight because otherwise it got boring. And so, we were at times best friends and at times enemies. How does being ambidextrous help you design? If I’m drawing with my right hand and I’m not getting a solution, I will pick up a pencil with my left hand. That might be the more romantic solution. I might say, “if this is the science building here, and I have to have a chapel in front of it, how do I tie them together? Well, I do this.” So the one hand talks to the other. Where have you exhibited your paintings? Hammer Museum (in Los Angeles), Bergamot Station (in Santa Monica) – a couple of galleries there and a gallery in Northern California. I exhibit only the two-dimensional work. I’ve never exhibited my sculptures. I don’t want to sell them. They’re too precious to me – they take too long to do. What is the difference between building and architecture? Very few buildings are pieces of architecture, with architecture being reserved for the art of building. Most buildings are nothing more than to hold like a container what is going on inside without any real concept or design philosophy. Does Los Angeles have its own style of architecture? Yes and no. At one time, it was more so than it is now. People look at Frank Gehry and that type of stuff and say, “That’s L.A. architecture.” But it’s not. If you look at what used to be the Union Bank building downtown, and you look at what used to be the Union Oil Center (now the Los Angeles Center Studios) downtown, they had a brise-soleil – a sun screen. And they came down, not on granite plazas like in New York City – they came down on landscaped plazas. It was garden city architecture at its best. And now we’re putting people in holes in the ground – in subways. People have lost a vision of what Southern California could be. What school of architecture do you practice? Modernist, but more of a romantic Modernist on the (Eero) Saarinen side of modernism as opposed to the Miesian (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) side. It’s not bare bones stuff – it’s really more romantic than that. How does your architecture sense affect your role as chair of the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee? I (also) head the vision committee. Planning and land use – we have to react to what comes before us. Vision is to look at the whole thing. Right now, the state and the city are mandating high density housing, which is fine. We need it. But we need open space. So our vision committee is studying how to do that. Southern California should feel like Southern California. It should not feel like New York City or Chicago. You have to take advantage of our weather and this landscaping and go back to what they were doing in the 1960s and 1970s. How? We’re trying to create these park areas. I’ve got ideas to make this happen. Not just with the Neighborhood Council, but in partnership with homeowners’ associations, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Improvement District. Where is the future of architecture going? Population density of every urban area is growing. When you have increased density, you have increased need for usable open space. I see it happening more and more, and I talk to a lot of young architects who are very fascinated with doing pocket parks and parklets throughout Los Angeles.
