Architects: A Call to Be City-Shapers

Fernando Juarez, president-elect of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the first Latino to gain the office, minces no words when he talks about the challenges awaiting him.

After his inauguration in January, Juarez says his primary task will be to transform what he and many other observers perceive to be a passive chapter overly concerned with the self-interests of the Westside Anglo architectural community into an active body engaged in city life at every level.

“Architects complain they’re not taken seriously as major players in shaping our urban environment,” Juarez said. “But that’s the fault of the profession’s own narrow self-absorption.”

Rather than “narrow pocketbook issues,” he believes the 1,800-member chapter should emphasize community service. “If we want to matter to the city at large, we have to take strong stands on issues such as the argument over growth, on housing the homeless, on the quality of the architecture we should be achieving. Failure to do that has more or less dealt us out of the game.”

As an example of the chapter’s inertia, Juarez cites its reaction to 1986’s Proposition U, which called for a drastic reduction of commercial development in largely residential areas of the city and passed overwhelmingly.

“We were paralyzed by Prop. U,” Juarez said. “Many members feared Prop. U would reduce their commissions. As a result, our voice was not heard in this vital debate. This has to change.”

The central thrust of his strategy will be to “encourage architects to get involved in the political process by taking a lead in neighborhood planning groups, and by seeing that professionals are nominated to the city planning commission, the Board of Public Works, the Cultural Affairs Commission and other important citizen bodies.”

The president-elect, whose term will last one year, would also like to see architects adopt a higher profile in appearances before governmental agencies, “to encourage good design and promulgate the value of the architect.

“One area where the chapter has simply fallen down in its duty is affordable housing for minorities and the poor,” he said. “On the national level the AIA has made some effort to offer the architect’s special expertise in thinking up innovative solutions for helping less-advantaged fellow citizens. On the local level, our record is appalling.”

When he takes office, Juarez said, he intends to collaborate with “relevant authorities in evolving new ideas for affordable housing.”

Current president Robert Reed concurs that the chapter must clarify its role as, “on the one hand, a professional organization concerned with promoting its members’ interests, and its contribution to the wider community. In the past we’ve often seemed to be pulled in both directions at once.”

Reed said he admires the capacity for hard work Juarez has demonstrated in his years as chairman of the chapter’s professional practice committee. “He has a dogged yet polite persistence,” Reed said. “If anyone can make things happen, it is Fernando.”

Setting an Example

Jan Van Tilburg, chairman of the LA/AIA’s interior design committee, agreed. “When he ran the professional practice committee, Juarez set an example to us all of professionalism, leadership and innovation. He arranged well-planned agendas, and invited interesting speakers, who drew a wide audience among members who are often too busy or too lazy to attend chapter events.”

A slight man with lively black eyes, Juarez, 57, was born in Tierra Blanca, a small town near Veracruz, Mexico. When he was 8, his father was killed in a “ machismo dispute,” and soon after Juarez and his mother converted to Mormonism. The church later awarded him a scholarship to study architecture at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. He was graduated in 1956 and, two years later, gained a postgraduate degree in city planning from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“When I first arrived in Utah I was cold and frightened,” he said. “My head was filled with stories about the bad way Americans treated Mexicans, especially poor ones, like me. But on the way up the hill from the railroad station to the college, everyone I met smiled at me and said, ‘Hi!’ Back in Tierra Blanca no one ever said, ‘Hi.’ ”

Traditional Designs

Today, Juarez runs a modest practice in the historic Spanish Revival Granada Building near Lafayette Park. Many of his commissions, such as the Los Angeles Retarded Children’s Foundation in Saugus, are for health or educational facilities. Some designs, like the Saugus building, reflect the adobe-like rounded profiles of traditional Mexican and Southwestern architecture.

Married, with two grown children, Juarez lives in Monterey Park. “I’m the first LA/AIA president to live east of Alameda,” he said jokingly.

A member of the local chapter since 1965, Juarez said he has never encountered overt prejudice in the organization: “On the contrary, the AIA was really helpful in educating me in dealing with professional problems of my own.

“I’ve been sued several times for so-called ethics violations. I’ve been accused of incompetence, been cut to pieces over contracts, been told I was a ‘bad man.’ No one ever explains the pitfalls of practice to architectural students.

“Architects take a lot of abuse from clients. Clients try to force down fees, to exploit younger designers struggling to establish their offices on a shoestring. Clients often bargain, withhold payments, sue at the slightest pretext.”

Among the remedies Juarez proposes is the introduction of an AIA dispute resolution board to arbitrate between architects and their clients. A neutral board could save much time and money in legal fees, he believes, and “lower the temperature of seemingly inevitable conflicts.”

On the other hand, Juarez said, the public should hold architects strictly accountable for their professional competence, responsibility, and, most of all, impact on the city’s landscape.

“Architects are often much too sensitive about their work and practice, partly out of fear of losing clients. More often, I feel, it’s simply a matter of not being used to the harsh light of critical concern. But if the design community wants to get the attention it feels it deserves, it will have to learn to take the heat.”