By BENJAMIN MARK COLE

Contributing Reporter

On the architectural spectrum that runs from staid to avant garde, Eric Owen Moss’ work is definitely on the avant-garde end, even by Los Angeles standards.

“Moss is not interested in taking his hat off to the past,” says UCLA architecture professor Richard Weinstein.

Technically, Moss converts warehouses, but he doesn’t simply gut the interiors and expose the brick and trussed ceilings. Rather, he builds structures within the revamped warehouses, designs new floor spaces, or even moves roofs. Catwalks dance in front of new, louvered windows. A warehouse may be elevated onto steel pillars. A large circular hole in a roof reveals airplanes flying overhead.

Old or existing materials are used, but new materials are also incorporated. And even when the original building components (roofs, facades, walls, etc.) are retained, they are often reoriented, or moved wholesale to a completely different part of the project. The result is sometimes called deconstructionist, but laymen might call the look retro-futuristic.

For the entertainment industry or new-media hotshots, a Moss building is architectural nirvana, both in practical terms, and in terms of enhancing client relations, say tenants.

“He has designed space for us that is an incredible combination of industrial quality and usability. But it is also among the most habitable that I have ever come across,” says Alex Jacobson, president of Trivida Corp., an artificial intelligence computer firm that leases 10,000 square feet of space, with 20 employees. “Today, it is very hard to retain high-skilled employees, and this office space helps me do that.”

Nick Rothenberg, managing partner at USWeb, an Internet service firm, concurs with Jacobson. “This space is effective on two levels,” he said. “Really, it is almost a sales tool. Clients are immediately struck by the dramatic choices he has made, and for our clients, it is indicative of the high-quality work we do.”

But also, said Rothenberg, his 120-odd employees and independent contractors like the feel of the space. “There is a very real relationship between the architectural place and the work we do. It is open space, with no ceilings an enhancement to our working environment.”

Offices are open or nearly so, walls are often of transparent materials, and there is fluidity and lack of hierarchy in the design, said Rothenberg.

In the architecture community where even the subtlest of issues seem to be debated constantly and at length Moss is regarded as a pioneer by many. Others feel he has become overexposed.

“There are people concerned about reinterpreting tradition in a current form, but others feel that the times, the contemporary moment is so unique that one must spend one’s energy understanding the present,” says Weinstein of UCLA. “Those people (including Moss) tend to produce buildings that don’t look like old buildings. To those people who care about building with continuity, they find (Moss’ work) deeply disturbing.”

Still, Moss doesn’t like being typecast, and professes he adheres to no particular architectural ideologies. Asked how he feels about an emerging set of informal architectural standards, known as the Hanover principles, which embody “sustainability,” or environmentally sensitive materials and designs, Moss only shrugs.

“I don’t think this office embraces anybody’s principles,” he says, referring to his own office. “That (Hanover principles) is like saying you are going to build a car, but the only criteria is gas mileage. Good luck selling that car.”

And selling his designs is clearly important to Moss. To accomplish that, he has outfitted each of the 22 architects working for him with a computer workstation, as much for marketing purposes as for design.

With more than a hint of disdain, Moss illustrates his feelings toward the computers by crumpling up a napkin snatched from a sandwich plate and dismissively tossing it on a desk in front of him. “You can show a client a model like this,” Moss says, standing and pointing at the paper napkin. “But he is going to be more sold on what he sees on the computer, in Autocad (computer graphic).”

At nearly $5,000 per workstation, the equipment for an operation of Moss’ size runs toward six figures. “It doesn’t really make sense,” he said. “The building will look the same (whether represented in fancy computer graphics or in a cheap paper, scale model). But you have to have the graphics to show clients.”

Moss’ laments are not sour grapes. In his profession, Moss is at the top. His resume lists countless awards and assignments, and his clients include Sony Pictures Entertainment and The Children’s Museum in downtown Los Angeles, among others.

Books have been written about Moss, who at 55 still has plenty of designing years ahead. The Washington Post described him as a “combative personality” armed with “bristling intelligence,” and his work as “explosive and scintillating.” A New York Times review called his warehouse conversion work “brilliant,” even utopian in its impact.

Despite such praises, and a deep desire to make Los Angeles a more livable and cohesive metropolis, Moss says he has been underutilized by those who matter most local developers.

“The big developers could all use local architects,” Moss said. “You have the MTA, LAX, the huge rebuilding of the city school system. There is a lot of business out there.”

So he lays down a challenge for developers: “Support your own architects, for heaven’s sake. We have architects in town such as Thom Mayne, and Frank Gehry, and Mike Rotondi and myself who really haven’t been appreciated by this city, and haven’t had the opportunity to help this city, which they want to do. Why does Gehry have to go to Bilbao (Spain) to get work?”

On the other side of such tirades is considerable charm. Moss, who teaches an advanced design studio at Yale University, earned a master’s degree in architecture from Berkeley and Harvard.

“The two degrees are really different types,” he said. “The first (from Berkeley) concentrated on the architecture of a single building, while the second, the Harvard one, had more of an emphasis on urban planning, the bigger picture, of planning whole sections of towns, or new cities. That was kind of in vogue at that time.”

Moss started his own shop in Los Angeles in 1973, a native son and UCLA undergrad.

The bulk of his work to date has been designing the rehabilitation of several hundred thousand square feet 72 acres worth of former railroad warehouses in Culver City, into avant-garde office space for high-tech and entertainment companies.

Frederick Samitaur Smith and his wife Laurie, owners of Culver City-based real estate development firm Samitaur Corp., have tapped Moss to oversee the architectural redevelopment of the former industrial yards. It is the Samitaur assignment, among others, that Moss offers to critics who say he is too concerned with making architectural statements.

“I don’t think business people would keep coming to us if our work didn’t make sense in business terms,” Moss says. “And I know that. In the end, projects have to make economic sense. But that doesn’t mean everything becomes merely functional.”

Moss’ work financed by the Smiths has enlivened a stretch of Culver City that had fallen by the wayside. About 65 percent of the 72-acre tract has been rehabbed, and 100 percent of that space is occupied, according to Samitaur.

“I want the local public and private sector to draw upon me, and the talents of other local architects, to reinvigorate Los Angeles, and let us help in the remaking of this city,” he says. “We understand it and care about it, because we live here.”