Michael Rotondi, FAIA, is the principal of RoTo Architects. He is internationally recognized as an architect/educator. Rotondi has practiced and taught architecture for 30 years, and has always been based in Los Angeles, where he was born in east Hollywood/Silverlake.
He was a founding partner, along with Thom Mayne, of Morphosis (1975-1991), and together with Clark Stevens he founded RoTo in 1991, where he is currently the sole principal. He was a founder of the graduate program and first Director of Graduate Studies at SCI-Arc between 1980-1987, and then served for ten years - 1987 to 1997 - as the school's Director. He currently teaches at SCI-Arc and serves on the school's Board of Directors. He is also a professor at Arizona State University and has taught at numerous other universities.
His ranges of interests have always been broad, which is evident in the types projects he is currently working on. Some recent and current projects are: Pacoima City Hall and Public Plaza; Boys and Girls Club of Hollywood teen center; The Silver Lake Conservatory of Music; Liberty Wildlife Center in Phoenix, AZ; Hansen Dam Skate Park; Madame Tussauds museum, Hollywood; Prairie View A&M University School of Architecture; La Jolla Playhouse at UCSD; the University Research Institute - conversion of a 50 acre industrial site in Louisville, Kentucky; reconceptualizing the re-use of Malls in Los Angeles, New Mexico, Palo Alto and Dubai; two Buddhist education campuses in Tehachapi and Santa Cruz, California; The Thomas Merton Contemplative Retreat in Kentucky; a ranch in Texas; and a house addition for an academic theologian.
Michael considers himself a teacher who practices and who still believes, as he did in his youth, that:
- Anything imaginable is possible
- Comfort is in proportion to uncertainty
- The ultimate test of an idea is to build it
- In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind, there are few
- Creative work-realized is a re-enactment of creation itself
- We become architects to help fulfill its most fundamental promise, to make the world better
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