Environmental Communications website

This website initiated by Tom Kracauer when he was a graduate student in the CalArts Graphic Design Program. The site document the work of Environmental Communications, a collective that started in the 1960s. "It started in early summer 1969. After graduating with an architecture degree from Arizona State University I returned to Los Angeles where I had been brought up on Kings Road in West Hollywood next to the home and studio of the great Austrian/California Architect R.M Schindler. EC rented a large studio space in the heart of Venice for $50 a month. It began as a multi-disciplinary, multi-media group. Our founding group included Architectural History Professor, Douglas White; Architectural graduate Ted Tanaka (Ted later became the architect of the colorful light columns at LAX), artist/photographer Roger Webster; Urban Planning/Design Professor Michael Kwartler and Environmental Psychologist, Bernard Perloff Ph.D. One professor helping with the past and another with the present and the future. Though our perspective was always very wide angle and a bit out of focus, we began to look at Los Angeles Architecture with a big “A” which for us included the environment around the architecture. Our methods were somewhat simple. L.A. had become "the integrated city" so the trick was just getting to really see it. One advantage for me was that I had gone away from LA to college in the Arizona desert for 8 years so upon my return I saw it freshly with new eyes, questioning everything without being critical. The "not critical" viewpoint came from me pretending I was like a man from Mars looking at everything for the first time… kind of like the hero in Stranger in a Strange Land. We were all strangers in a strange land. It was very helpful to see so many things without judgment. Not just good or bad but OK...this is just the truth of the thing." —David Greenberg, co-founder, Environmental Communications; edited by Elizabeth Freeman. The text continues on the site http://www.environmentalcommunications.com/