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Thom Mayne: Architectural Bad Boy

Brigham Young University

Thom Mayne: Architectural Bad Boy

March 10, 2006


He is referred to as a "Bad Boy", a "Maverick", and a "Loose Cannon" in today's architectural world. His methods are unorthodox, highly progressive, and revolutionary. Thom Mayne and his California-based architectural firm Morphosis have infiltrated the building scene to wow critics and scholars alike with his cutting-edge designs and uncanny sense of aesthetic function. Thom Mayne was recently named in 2005 as the winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize award for his designs and innovation in architecture. Indeed, many do not see him as such a bad boy when they consider the things he has accomplished with his buildings. Looking at his projects, Mayne has clearly developed his reputation as a radical by making strong new efforts in economy, practicality, and aesthetic value in his designs and everything else that makes up the basics of practical building. Such characteristics were stunningly manifest in his recent project in Pomona, California in the construction of the new Diamond Ranch High School (Figures 1-2), one of the projects that helped him secure his status as a Pritzker Laureate and further established his place as an artist who defies standard practice as well as well as defines it.
Of course it would seem that for such a maverick in the architectural world, his reception of the Pritzker Prize would signal his official inauguration into the establishment, which would be inconsistent with the bad boy image he is known for. In reality, Mayne's guerilla-like tactics he carefully uses to instigate change are precisely what have carried him into his current realm of veneration by many who view his work. His work achieves its ground breaking reality by forcing concessions, little by little, of those who judge it and over time gathers these concessions in small increments to push or complete the fundamental change he was striving for. This fundamental change is...