WHAT’S YOUR PRIORITY FOR LOS ANGELES?

MICHAEL B. LEHRER, FAIA – President,  LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA

The Challenge:

The issue is that LA, like most places, is led and orchestrated by a deeply siloed government /bureaucracy / private for-profit and non-profit sector.  Under the best circumstances, these are purposeful and meaningful and the embodiment of our best aspirations and values. Siloed nonetheless.

The challenge is to radically breakdown / break open the silos to one another to achieve cohesion in building and transforming our city to create massive, best quality affordable, enduring, mixed income, mixed everything beautiful housing and communities.  This requires profound culture change, the hardest, usually impossible thing to do.

The Solution:

Architecture is optimism.  With architecture as the prime medium of transformation, the culture can change because the explicit visceral work that great and beautiful places do to transform lives / perceptions /  beliefs. This can only happen with public /private / financial / development sectors brought into alignment by unprecedented leadership.  That leadership must be cajoling, demanding, nurturing, accomplishing deeply inspiring, joy-and hope-filled, encompassing the broad swath of the population. 

Our leaders must make it safe to achieve and safe to err along the way;  they must make the broad discomfort (that accompanies the pursuit of excellence) tenable and endurable. This particular time is one of excited ferment; good and great can emerge.

MICHAEL B. LEHRER, FAIA – President,  LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA

ARCHITECTURE IS THE SHAPING OF SPACE WITH OBJECTS IN LIGHT TO CREATE PRACTICAL AND EMOTIVE PLACES.

Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA founded LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA in his native Silverlake District of Los Angeles. His work, from the intimate to the monumental, is grounded in the idea that beauty is a rudiment of human dignity. He designs for community with a reverence for light and space. Delight is a matter of extreme gravitas in the work.

Los Angeles–a deeply non-judgmental and open city of seamless indoor/outdoor living and being–is at the core of Michael’s architecture and worldview. For him, architecture is optimism.

In 2020, The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles bestowed the Gold Medal, its “highest honor” on Michael. “His devotion to fellow humans is matched by his mastery of craft,” stated 2020 AIALA President Greg Verabian, AIA. “He is an architect fully engaged in architecture as a means to contribute to society as a whole.”

Lehrer Architects LA has won over 150 major design and sustainability awards, including 50 design awards from the national, state, and local chapters of The American Institute of Architects.

Educated at Berkeley and Harvard, Michael is Chairman Emeritus of the Harvard Graduate School of Design Alumni Council and is Past President of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles.

He is Past President of AIA LA, where he founded its annual, ongoing Legislative Day–now in its 24th year–which has fundamentally changed the nature of the profession in LA. He also initiated the AIA/LA push to make GREAT STREETS, a central initiative in our city. He was Vice Chairman of School Construction Bond Oversight Committee for over 5 years, overseeing (a now) $27 Billion repair and construction program for the LAUSD.

He is married to Mia Lehrer, FASLA. They have three children: Benjamin (and Laura), Rebecca (and Neil), and Raphael (and Alana), and grandchildren, Gabriel, Roxanna, Clara and Amos.

• THE GOLD MEDAL, American Institute of Architects Los Angeles
• President, LEHRER ARCHITECTS LA INC.
• Chairman Emeritus, Harvard Graduate School of Design Alumni Council
• University of California at Riverside Design Review Board
• Past President, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles
• Past President, American Institute of Architects Los Angeles
• Past Vice Chairman of LASUSD School Construction Bond Oversight Committee
• Student Body President, Thomas Starr King Junior High School
• Student Body Vice-President, John Marshall High School