Bernard is a guest at a midterm review at Woodbury’s  School of Architecture. The project was Housing in the Los Angeles “China Town” area .

Review of student project

The “VDL House II ” was given to Cal Poly Pomona as a study center for art, architecture and the community by the Neutra Family.

Richard and Dion Neutra.

The LA 12 Revisited

Interview with Bernard Zimmerman

Interview with  Mark Dillon  -Edit by  Joan Hacker

v5:  What have been the rewards of practicing architecture?

BZ:   I still haven't reaped my rewards yet. I don't know what the rewards are. There doesn't seem to be very many, you meet wonderful people, you love design, you love design people. So the rewards are there, but the amount of effort you can place to meet change or to do architecture, is very, very difficult. Of all the groups I know, and I'm sure its happened to other people, the only one that has really made it, that has been challenged, would be Frank Gehry. I don't know if he is feeling the rewards, he might feel that he still has the next building to do. I heard him speak at Cal Poly Pomona and he said that he still didn't know if he was still avant-garde or not because, someday, someone was going to knock him off, and that he wasn't enjoying his position of being top dog. The rewards are difficult to define, I think its not a rewarding profession in that sense. I think it's a profession of giving and doing, knowing what you can do to make life better for people or how to make it happen. I guess the rewards for me have been the people I have met, I have met some wonderful people. Like Bucky Fuller, Richard Neutra and Eric Mendleson. I have met a lot of good people and that is rewarding. I was just thinking about rewards. Probably the greatest reward that I've had in life is having children and grandchildren. There is a Jewish word, kvell, it means you feel it all inside, I kvell when I think of them. When I think of architecture, I don't kvell as much. I guess I keep having to prove myself, so there are no rewards. There are no rewards or awards. (laughs)

v5:  You have been teaching for a long time, has that been rewarding? Most of the names you have spoke of were professional relationships.

BZ:  The teaching has been a wonderful reward, teaching is wonderful, and the whole concept of teaching is wonderful. Unfortunately, for me, I don't think I have taught at the right place. I can't make an impact.

v5:  At Cal Poly Pomona?

BZ:  At Cal Poly Pomona. I have met some wonderful students and professors. Teaching is part of my living. I was talking with someone yesterday, I said to him in a joking way, knowing he was from Israel, I said, "Are you still Jewish?" He said, "Jewish is a way of life, being Jewish is a way of life, it is not a religion." And I was thinking about it, everybody has their jewishiness, because it is how they are brought up. I was brought up by teachers, if it wasn't for teachers, I don't think I would have made it. So the teachers are very important, giving back is important and rabbis were important to me, rabbis mean teachers. The students are refreshing, the young mind is terribly refreshing, I don't know what it is, that the young mind is sort of much better than the old mind, yet a lot of these students just don't pan out.

Pomona has been a disappointment to me, I've put a lot of effort into it, thirty years.
 

v5:  That's a tremendous amount of effort.

BZ:  Yes, a tremendous amount of effort. I still put effort into it. You know I get beaten up and am not recognized. It is small things but they add up. I created some of the problems in the sense of the people I choose to be around there and that I didn't make the right decisions in many cases. Yet, on the other hand, I made some good decisions.

 If the students could carry the message for me, that would be rewarding. So far they haven't, they are good, but we haven't created a movement, we haven't done really significant things. Probably the most significant thing to me is that I know Frank Gehry, and people think of him as one of the greatest architects in the world. I asked Bob Kramer the question of who are the great architects of the twenty-first century, and he said, "Le Corbusier and Frank Gehry". And I said "Frank Gehry?" and he said, "Yeah, Frank Gehry". He said Frank Gehry made a shift in architecture. You know if Frank continues the way he is going and gets the kind of commissions he is able to do, then he might be that, he might be the architect of the twenty-first century.

v5:  You are going to Bilboa, Spain, to see the opening of the Guggenheim Museum that has been built there. Are you excited about that?

BZ:  I'm more excited about just being in Spain. Bilboa, from its looks, it is more of the typical kind of things that Frank Gehry does. It is very confusing from what I see photographs of, so I'm excited to find out if its as good as everyone talks about. I had some people tell me it's outstanding and wonderful and some people are saying its not so good. I'm excited; I'm the kind of person who has to be where the action is (laughs), so I'm excited about going to where the action is. I'm just as excited about seeing Richard Meiers Barcelona Museum. I'd be more excited, though, if the Disney Concert Hall that Frank Gehry designed would get built the way he wants it to be, that is what I'm excited about. I understand that building better than I understood the Guggenheim. Its more simpatico and orderly, except the structure, that is not expressive of the outside. So no, I'm not that excited about Bilboa.

v5:  What should students learn by reviewing the body of architectural projects that you have completed?

BZ:  What should students learn? Well, first of all, I feel I'm just beginning. Secondly, I think there is an order to architecture, and if Jewish is a way of life, “ modernism is a way of life”. They should learn that there is a way of life, and design is a part of that life. Design can enrich that life. Design and architecture help make life. They could learn about the people who went before them and realize that architecture is responsive to man's technology and mans growth and it should relate to that. Plus it should also relate to nature. Neutra always said that, and we will find out as we inhabit other planets or do other experiments in outer space. He said this species of man has to return to nature to revitalize itself, it's like spirituality. You know spirituality is something you need to get through life, I feel, otherwise it is a very sad existence. So what they should learn is that building and nature should relate in some way. They can contrast, be organic, but they must be sensitive to nature and mans needs.  I was thinking about that the other day. That if in my life, I only was part of the continuum of the modern movement as we know it, you know, the Walter Gropius' and Frank Lloyd Wrights', that it would be very rewarding, and I think they should learn that. I've been very, very upset lately with the postmodern movement and where it has gone. It has served the developer and the mediocrity of society. For awhile that is where I thought the modern movement was attacked, so I thought the students were doing that all over the place at school and it was very sad for me. Now it seems to be on track. What I would like for them to learn from me is that I'm just part of the continuum.

 With me, you always want the son to be better than the father. So I would think if they could be really sensitive to nature and the environment, that would be good. Probably the greatest influence on me was Neutra. Neutra knew how to build with nature. Shindler too, by the way he sited some of his houses, it was remarkable how he just got those things to be right on the site. Just amazing.

And people are not sensitive to that. I would like the young people to be sensitive. When you say young people, its sort of a joke for me, since I still think I'm young. I've never thought you could be approaching seventy and still trying to do something.

v5:  The Neutra Lovell Health House, up in the Griffith Park area, is truly a beautiful building.

BZ:  It's one of the great buildings of the century. It's a great building.

v5:  Did he ever talk to you specifically about that project?

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