Résumé

Draftsman, [William J.] Conklin and [James] Rossant, Architects, New York, NY, c. 1968. This firm existed between 1965 and 1995. (See James Rossant Architects.com, "James Rossant," accessed 10/09/2024.)

Architect, Works, New York, NY, c. 1968-1969. Mangurian worked in a partnership, Works, in New York, NY, with two others, including Craig Hodgetts (born 1937), c. 1968-1969. His Los Angeles Times.com obituary stated: "Craig Hodgetts, a friend and former collaborator who helped establish the precursor to Studio Works, a New York-based office called simply Works, recalls Mangurian as a curious intellectual who was as devoted to big-picture concepts as he was to the details of execution." Miranda also said of the Works office: "After college, a succession of jobs followed. He moved to New York City to work at Conklin & Rossant, the firm that helped plan the city of Reston, Va., and while there he connected with Hodgetts, a Yale University graduate who had established Works with fellow architect Lester Walker and graphic designer Keith Godard. One of their first projects was a neon-illuminated retail storefront for toy manufacturer Creative Playthings — a well-received project that Mangurian helped see to fruition. Works’ office was located on Union Square, in an office right above Andy Warhol’s Factory studio. Ray says the group would prank Warhol by dangling a blaring radio on a rope outside the artist’s window. (See Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times.com, "Architect Robert Mangurian dies — a key member of SCI-Arc’s founding generation," published 07/12/2023, accessed 10/09/2024.) Creative Playthings produced many toys in the 1950s and 1960s that had minimal Modernist appearances, items that became very collectible by the 2000s.

Founding Partner, Works West / Studio Works, Los Angeles, CA, c. 1974- . He founded Studio Works with Keith Godard, Craig Hodgetts, and Lester Walker. They left for other pursuits leaving Mangurian. In Los Angeles (and elsewhere), Hodgetts and Mangurian collaborated on work by about 1974. For at least some time in 1978, the firm called itself, "Works West." (See "Architectural Views: Physical Fact, Psychic Effect," An exhibit of architectural drawings at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 2020 S. Robertson, L.A., January 17-February 16, 1978," LA Architect, 02/1978, p. 4.) He was later joined by Mary-Ann Ray as a partner in 1987.

Teaching

Mangurian taught at many institutions including University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), Princeton University, Tulane University, and Washington University (Saint Louis, MO) and Harvard University.

Instructor, City College of the City University of New York, School of Architecture, New York, NY, c. 1973.

Instructor, UCLA, Westwood, Los Angeles, c. 1978.

Director, SCI-Arc, Graduate Program in Architecture, Santa Monica, CA, 1987-1997.

Professor, SCI-Arc, Santa Monica, CA, and Los Angeles, CA, 1987-2018.

Wortham Visiting Professor, Rice University, School of Architecture, Houston, TX.

Harry S. Shure Visiting Professor, University of Virginia, School of Architecture, Charlottesville, VA.

Saarinent Visiting Professor, Yale University, School of Architecture, New Haven, CT.

Taubman Professor, University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ann Arbor, MI.

Visiting Lecturer, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA.

Professional Activities

Eliel Saarinen Visiting Professorship, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, (Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray), Fall 2002 and Fall 2005.

Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray delivered the James Sterling Memorial Lecture before the AIA New York Chapter in New York, NY, on 04/01/2009. This event was co-hosted by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the London School of Economics.

Professional Awards

Recipient (with Mary-Ann Ray), Chrysler Design Award for Innovation, Excellence and Sustained Vision. Mangurian and Ray received the Rome Prize in 2001 for study in Rome.

SCI-Arc named a scholarship program, the "Robert Mangurian Scholarship," in 2023.

High School / College

Coursework, Redondo Union High School, Redondo Beach, CA, c. 1956. Mangurian was on the chess club at Redondo Union High School. (See Redondo Union High School Pilot Yearbook, 1956, p. 64.)

Graduate, El Segundo High School, El Segundo, CA, 1959. Mangurian was an outstanding student at El Segundo High School. (See the El Segundo High School Golden Eagle Yearbook, 1958, p. 68,)

Coursework, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, c. 1962.

B.Arch., University of California, Berkeley (UCB), Berkeley, CA, 1963-1967. Mangurian's time at Stanford was brief: "Mangurian’s undergraduate studies took him to Stanford University, but ever restless, he decided, with his brother David, to take time off from school to tool around Europe in a Citroen they acquired for $800. As a mandolin player in a band called the Tennessee Three, he spent several months in England gigging in pubs that had once hosted folk stars like Bob Dylan. On his return to the United States, Mangurian transferred to UC Berkeley, where he majored in architecture — motivated, he once said, more by an interest in history than in the formal particulars of the field. 'I fell into it,' he once said. 'I like the history part better.'" (See Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times.com, "Architect Robert Mangurian dies — a key member of SCI-Arc’s founding generation," published 07/12/2023, accessed 10/09/2024.)

Relocation

Born in Baltimore, MD on 04/15/1941, Robert Mangurian spent his earliest years living in that city, close to Washington, DC, the center of the US political and mililtary bureaucracy. During the 1930s, while much of the rest of the country foundered economically, increased government spending insured some stability for civil service workers and those employed by firms fulfilling contracts with the US Government. This was especially true of those companies producing military supplies and weapons. His parents George and Margaret Mangurian resided at 1907 South Road in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore, by at least 10/16/1940, as per his World War II draft registration card. The card indicated an address of 1813 South Road initially, but this was struck through and the number "1907" placed above it. This suggested that either the family lived at 1813 South Road in 10/1940 and moved just after that and the address was updated (as was sometimes done on these cards), or the 1813 address was a mistake. George N. Mangurian, Sr., worked as an aeronautical engineer for the Glenn L. Martin Company, a firm that had moved from Cleveland, OH, to a new manufacturing facility in Middle River, MD, in 1929, closer to the US Naval bureaucracy in Washington, DC. Despite the Depression, the Martin Company grew steadily after its move, producing military bombers, including the revolutionary and highly successful Martin B-10 bomber for the US Army Air Corps, various US Navy seaplanes and the famous China Clipper ​(Martin M-130) seaplane for Pan American World Airways. Before World War II, Martin was a very healthy company on the cutting edge of aeronautical technology.

The Mangurian family--Robert, his parents and his two brothers--continued to reside at 1907 South Road when the 1950 US Census was taken. At this time, Mount Washington had a mix of people living there, including a neighboring farmer as well as office workers and at least two lawyers. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland; Roll: 6047; Page: 11; Enumeration District: 4-1488, accessed 12/05/2024.)

In 1951, George Mangurian, Sr., was promoted to become Northrop Corporation's chief of structures, a promotion that required relocation from MD to Hawthorne, CA. As a result, Mangurian grew up in the Los Angeles, CA, area, his family first setlling in Glendale, CA. He later attended El Segundo High School during the late 1950s. The Mangurians also resided in Rancho Palos Verdes for two decades, as his father George commuted to a job at Northrop Corporation's Hawthorne Laboratories. (See Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times.com, "Architect Robert Mangurian dies — a key member of SCI-Arc’s founding generation," published 07/12/2023, accessed 10/09/2024.) Northrop also maintained labs on the Palos Verdes Peninsula in 1970.

For college, Robert moved to the Bay Area, first at Stanford University, and then the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). In 1963, he traveled in Europe between Stanford and UCB.

Mangurian moved to New York City in 1968 after graduating UCB, where he operated an architecture studio one floor above Andy Warhol's famed Factory at 33 Union Square West. He was part of the faculty in the School of Architecture at the City College of New York (CCNY) in 1973, along with others such as Jonathan Barnett (born 1937), Norval White (1926-2009), and Anthony Condido (1924-2023). (See 1973 Senior Yearbook of the City College of the City University of New York, p. 76.) It appears that the architect continued to reside in New York during most of the 1970s but traveled a great deal for work and education.

Mangurian won a Rome Prize fellowship in 1976, enabling him to reside in italy during 1977. After 1977, he was again collaborating with Craig Hodgetts, working on an urban design project for the riverfront area of Minneapolis, MN. (See "Mississippi, the river: ristrutturazione del centro di Minneapolis," Domus, no. 568, 03/1977, pp. 26-30.) In 1978, Mangurian and Hodgetts were exhibiting drawings at the Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art. (See "Architectural Views: Physical Fact, Psychic Effect," LA Architect, 02/1978, unknown page.)

In 01/1978, Mangurian and his wife Pauline had an address of 180 Bleecker Street in the South Village portion of the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. (See Ancestry.com, Source Information Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007, accessed 10/09/2024.) The architect relocated his base of operations from New York City to Los Angeles by about 1980.

In 1985, Mangurian established Atelier Italia in Rome, which operated until 1997. In 1993, he and and his wife Mary-Ann Ray worked with Zhang Yonghe to open a branch campus of SCI-Arc in China.

In 2002, they moved to the Cao Chang Di (CCD) Art District of Beijing to set up their project Beijing Architecture Studio Enterprise (BASE). BASE, c. 2012, was located at No. 8 Jia District A, Airport Sideway, Caochangdi, Chaoyang, Beijing 100015.

Parents

His father George Nishan Mangurian, Sr., (born 02/28/1906 in Springfield, MA-d. 02/12/1999 in Atlantis, FL) worked as an successful aeronautical engineer in CT, MD and CA, first for the United Aircraft Corporation in CT, then the Glenn L. Martin Company in MD before World War II and, during the war at the Northrop Corporation. Robert's father worked on Northrop's XP-79 "flying wing" fighter during World War II, a design that presaged the B-2 Stealth Fighter. Between 1951 and 1956, George Mangurian worked as Northrop's chief of structures, and, between 1956 and 1959, became its chief analytical engineer. (See "Northrop Elevates 3 Key Engineers," Los Angeles Times, 05/24/1956, p. A11.) After 1959, he became the marketing director for Northrop's space division. He retired in 1971 at the level of vice-president and returned East to live in Madison, CT, and later Bethesda, MD. (See "George N. Mangurian; Northrop Engineer and Designer," Los Angeles Times, 02/16/1999, p. A12A.)

Robert's paternal grandparents Nishan Kevork Mangurian (born 10/27/1870 in Armenia-d. 02/08/1947 in Arlington, MA) and Nazelie Boyajian (born 1879 in Armenia-d. 07/29/1964 in Arlington, MA) immigrated to the US in 1892 and 1901, respectively, (as noted in the 1910 US Census), and settled in Springfield, MA, where Nishan worked as a cabinet maker at a lumber mill. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1910; Census Place: Springfield Ward 8, Hampden, Massachusetts; Roll: T624_592; Page: 9b; Enumeration District: 1936; FHL microfilm: 1374605, accessed 12/05/2024. The 1920 US Census listed their immigration dates as 1894 and 1901, with both becoming naturalized in 1905.) Fortunately for them both, they exited their homeland before the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916.

By 1920, Nishan and Nazelie had moved their family to Somerville, MA, important because their son George was able to obtain an education in the Boston area with its many fine universities. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the late 1920s, and earned an MIT master's degree in civil engineering that enabled him to obtain a job as an engineer and join the middle class during the Depression era.

George Mangurian married Margaret Harrison Barton (born 06/12/1908 in Cromwell, CT-d. 11/22/1995) on 09/11/1936 in Manhattan, NY, NY. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan; Volume Number: 9, accessed 12/05/2024.) Margaret's parents were Louis Lincoln Barton (born 11/20/1865 in CT-d. 1944 in CT) and Florence Jones (born 07/1874 in Washington, DC-d. 1919 in CT). Margaret grew up in Cromwell, CT, (c. 1910) and East Hartford, CT, (c. 1920). In 1910, Louis worked as a florist, managing a floral greenhouse and continued to work as a horticulturalist ten years later. (In 1910, a Swedish neighbor, Carl Pierson, also worked as a florist in the Barton's middle-class neighborhood, perhaps in association with him. See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1910; Census Place: Cromwell, Middlesex, Connecticut; Roll: T624_135; Page: 5a; Enumeration District: 0295; FHL microfilm: 1374148, accessed 12/05/2024 and Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1920; Census Place: East Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut; Roll: T625_181; Page: 42B; Enumeration District: 28, accessed 12/05/2024.) Margaret lost her mother when she was about ten years old, and lived with her father and two siblings who were eleven and ten years older.

While Robert grew up, Margaret Mangurian maintained the household for the family.

At his death in 2023, Robert was survived by his brother David B. Mangurian (born 07/1938 in MD). His other brother was George Mangurian, Jr., who died at age 25. (born 02/14/1946 in MD-d. 05/22/1971 in Los Angeles County, CA).

Spouse

Robert Mangurian had two long-term partners. At age 22, he married Pauline Ann Stephens (born 02/24/1941 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England-d. 08/19/2005 in Los Angeles, CA) on 05/30/1963 in Los Angeles County, CA. Her parents were Edward Trevor Stephens (born c. 1910 in England), a barrister, and Joan P. Lewis. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Institute of Advanced Legal Studies; London, England, UK; The Law Society: Examination Records 1836-1984; Reference: LSOC 10/58, accessed 10/09/2024.)

Pauline applied for US naturalization in 1978. (See Ancestry.com, Source Information Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007, accessed 10/09/2024.)

His later partner was the architect Mary-Ann Ray (born 07/19/1958). They became acquainted with each other c. 1985.

Children

He and Pauline Stephens had a son, Anthony.

Biographical Notes

During his college years, Robert toured Europe with a country-and-western trio called the "Tennessee Three." He played the mandolin in the group, that had some success in England during 1963. (See Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times.com, "Architect Robert Mangurian dies — a key member of SCI-Arc’s founding generation," published 07/12/2023, accessed 10/09/2024.) His father George was also quite musical, having played a stringed instrument, the banjo, in the Banjo Club at MIT in 1927 and the piano with the "Techtonians," a musical ensemble in 1929. (See Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technique Yearbook, 1927, p. 258 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technique Yearbook, 1929, p. 283.)

• Baltimore, MD (Architect's Birth)
  Baltimore, MD

  ---

  OpenStreetMap (new tab)

  Google Map (new tab)

  

  Baltimore City is independent of Baltimore County.

  ---