Notes:
Notes:
Lecture series; lecture given 7/24/2001 by Los Angeles architectural photographer, Marvin Rand and architect, Lawrence Scarpa, discussing the collaboration between the two; "July 24: Marvin Rand and Lawrence Scarpa The first lecture, on July 24, featured architect Lawrence Scarpa and photographer Marvin Rand. The pairing underscored the role of architectural photography in shaping our perceptions of projects and highlighted the close working relationship that architects have with their photographers. Rand's career predates Scarpa's considerably, beginning in 1943 as a photographer for the Air Force. After the war, he worked as an advertising photographer in Los Angeles until he met noted architectural historian Esther McCoy, who introduced him to architectural photography. Rand recounted his experiences photographing many of Los Angeles's greatest architects. He served as Welton Beckett's photographer for twenty-five years, worked closely with Craig Ellwood, and spent five years documenting the Watts Towers. Through McCoy, Rand also discovered the work of Irving Gill and photographed it for the first major Gill exhibit at LACMA in 1958. If Rand has collaborated with many architects, his work with Lawrence Scarpa is remarkable because it extends back to the very first project Scarpa did in 1988, which Rand was able to land on the cover of Angelino magazine. In his half of the lecture, punctuated appropriately with slides taken by Rand, Scarpa talked about a series of his projects, from the David Hertz Film Studio in Hollywood and the Venice Community Housing project built in collaboration with Jennifer Siegel, to an intervention in the Davie Brown Entertainment company's warehouse. Scarpa's work demonstrated an interest in the use of surfaces to make space. This was evidenced by a desk for Reactor Films that acted as a wrapper creating a void and in the striking shrink-wrapped dressing room in the Davie Brown project. In an affordable housing project in Santa Monica, Scarpa demonstrated something that many of us hope to pursue: the development of a more sustainable form of inhabiting the earth. Even though connected to the grid, the Colorado and 5th project, already under construction, is anticipated to be 100% energy neutral. Scarpa explained that natural light and ventilation could augment or replace energy consuming systems while a series of solar panels built into the facade would generate power that could both satisfy the energy needs of the inhabitants and, at times, feed back into the grid, leading to a net zero energy consumption for the project. The nature of the collaboration was explored at points in Scarpa's lecture, in which Rand would add an explanation of the techniques behind the photography, and in questions after the lecture. It was revealing to understand the collaboration as one without a clear set of rules, in which the two would complement each other through differences as well as similarities of opinion. For example, whereas Scarpa stated that he preferred 3/4 shots and shots of details, Rand explained that he liked straight-on photos. Rather than being a mere implementer of the architect's desires, the architectural photographer is also an artist, his task being to take content and reflect it creatively."