ArtTable Creative Force Award Acceptance Speech Given by Brenda A. Levin, FAIA, November 1, 2003 Thank you Nancy for that generous and warm introduction... An introduction that my late parents would have relished, that I will certainly send my son as a belated birthday present, and that my supportive husband of 27 years, David Abel, will no doubt put in a proper context when we get home tonight. By way of disclosure, I have known and respected Nancy Berman for many, many, years. She is a very cherished friend... a personal and professional resource of inestimable value... but the art community already knows about Nancy. We are all the beneficiaries of her creative advocacy. I'd also like to thank Frances Anderton for her thoughtful remarks and insights into Los Angeles Architecture and Design. Her voice is distinctive, not only in accent, but also in her ability to weave the creative strands of designers work into compelling stories worthy of public attention. This talent is in itself an important art form and we must all fully support--- her and KCRW. I am truly honored, and it is a special privilege to be here this afternoon to receive ArtTable's inaugural West Coast Creative Force Award. I recognize that this award, although new to Los Angeles, has a history... an honor role of distinguished past recipients, each of whom have made significant contributions to the visual arts. The fact that you have chosen an architect as the first West Coast recipient might be noted in future years as a bit unconventional. But indeed, isn't that what the west coast is known for...extolling the unconventional. Surely architecture and city building ...are aligned with the visual arts, as Frank Gehry's Disney Hall has clearly demonstrated to the cultural world. My own artistic identification began as a child. I grew up drawing, painting and eagerly awaiting John Nagy's weekly TV drawing lessons. My parents supported my taking art classes with a well-known portrait painter whose studio overlooked the Hudson River. Although the only child in his nighttime class, I was taken seriously, formally taught and encouraged in a way I had not experienced in my public school. At seventeen I was allowed, by my overprotective parents, to take the bus across the George Washington Bridge to NY to attend the Arts Students League...surreptitiously changing my clothes to the requisite "black" in the school's bathroom before class to disguise my suburban roots. In 1964 when I arrived at College, in the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Tech, the sheer talent, discipline and experience of my classmates both challenged and intimidated me. In quick undergraduate succession, I majored in painting, textile design, printmaking, finally settling on graphic design. I did once peer into the College's school of architecture but noticed that there were just two women students who had managed to break through the profession's historic male gender bias. With the women's movement not yet fully in bloom, I withdrew from the doorway. That changed substantially by the time, at the age of 27, I began a Masters program in architecture at Harvard, where forty percent of my first year class were women, an exponential increase from past years. That statistic, it should be noted, was confidence building, but has -three decades later-yet to be translated into any parity in the number of women in senior positions within architecture firms nor firms headed solely by women. Graduating in 1976, I skeptically but bravely accompanied my soon to be husband across country to Los Angeles. I was, needless to say, a bit apprehensive about becoming an actual resident of sun drenched sprawling Southern California. When my Cambridge classmates learned of my choice, they were even less optimistic - they feared I'd be captured by the culture and left to designing hamburger and donut drive throughs. What I came to realize, in short time, is that Los Angeles, is actually a petrie dish for dreams...unusually open to experimentation, receptive to adaptation, self invention, new ideas and even women architects from Boston. I grew to appreciate both how immigrants like myself, new transplants to California, were embraced based on merit, and given opportunities that were often beyond the reach of women and minorities in more traditional locales. I've been fortunate to have now practiced for more than twenty years in Southern California.. and the personal and professional rewards have been many. But rather than recount specifics... let me share with you a recurring theme that offers insight into my architectural practice here in Los Angeles. I am often asked about my profession... more often than not the immediate response to my answer will be...Oh, I always wanted to be an architect, or I thought about going to architecture school but I'm not good in math, or I can't draw. It's appropriate today, with ArtTable's honor in hand, to disabuse you of the myth that excellence in math is a pre requisite to success in architecture- or more importantly... to creativity. Frankly...Architecture is a romantic profession. As children I/we spend hours building imaginary cities, towers, roads and bridges, transforming ideas in our minds into a physical reality. Seeing something emerge from nothing but our own vision is a very powerful stimulant. I love cities, their complexity and energy. The belief that I might be able to shape and impact the urban built environment drew me to architecture. I have not been disappointed. Each new building commission is a process of education, analysis, intuition, creation, invention, discipline and perseverance. It is both a challenge and a professional privilege to work with clients who bring their own hopes, dreams and aspirations to a project. When the interests of the architect and the client merge... when you are successful in solving the problem posed, satisfying the functional requirements, and are then able to create spaces, which lift spirits, stimulate the individual, foster interaction and create a sense of community and civic pride, ... the work is magical...and one's professional contributions are more than worthy of the romanticized notion of an architect. Each new project offers that opportunity...an intellectual and creative test to tempt one's imagination. The client, the program and the context, are, by analogy to the visual arts, the architect's canvas, palette and paintbrush... The creative forces within this city - cultural openness and unharnessed ambition, have certainly provided me opportunities to test my own creativity and professional imagination. So, in accepting this honor...I want to first thank my adopted home-- Los Angeles. I also want to thank my patrons and mentors, who personally nourished and supported my talents over the last two decades. Each of us, and most especially architects and artists, benefits from a patron and valued mentor. I have been fortunate to have found both in my career. Each afforded me the chance to contribute not only to the preservation but also to the evolving form of Los Angeles, exploring the intersection of the art and science of design and the state of our built environment. And finally the creative force that enriches me, in addition to my family, is the close community of colleagues and friends whose own work excites, engages and stimulates me to improve, experiment, learn and respond to new contexts and challenges. Thank you to ARtTABLE and all of you who are here today, for this deeply appreciated recognition. Education | Arts & Culture | Civic & Social | Urban Revitalization About Levin & Associates | News | Home