Ideal Live/Work Space: Michael Rotondi
Michael Rotondi, the former director and co-founder of SCI-Arc (Southern California School of Architecture), is the founder of RoTo Architecture. The BROODWORK: It’s About Time exhibition is honored to share 100 of Rotondi’s personal notebooks. His notebooking is the stuff of legend, an integral tool to his practice. RoTo’s mission has been to trace a continuity from past to present, while integrating a teacher-practitioner’s field of trans-disciplinary interests, within and beyond architecture. Here Michael speaks about his own continuous way of working and living and the ideal places where he can do both.
My ideal workspace is wherever I am when a thought or an image comes to mind and I can sit with my sketchbook. I have always carried a notebook with me, for at least thirty years.
This hand to paper, mediated by my fountain pen or RoTo pencils, switches on my mind and focuses my attention. As I draw or write, all of my senses become more acute—apprehending everything around me more clearly and precisely.
A paradox, but true.
Above: It’s All One Thing, installation of 100 Rotondi notebooks at BROODWORK: It’s About Time
If I am looking at something, someone is speaking, or my mind’s eye has conjured an image, I begin to diagram and write what I see and hear. Thoughts and ideas merge into visual thinking.
Above: Rotondi working with Ven. Lama Chodak Gyatso Nubpa
My hand moves at the speed of an evolving idea as it appears on paper. Writing and sketching is a form of uploading rather than down loading.
I work in this way, most often, at home, at RoTo (my office).
And at SCI-arc, and at Miracle Manor Retreat in the desert, which April Greiman and I own.
But I also work on the road (especially on a plane), which is my quiet time.
When Michael and l start a dialogue we both pull out our moleskins. Very quickly our conversation overcomes our ability to write and sketch. We are going to video.
John Ash
JAG/RoTo Architects