Richard Weinstein, who jumped from NYC politics to architecture deanship at UCLA, dies at 85
Richard Weinstein, former dean of the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA died Feb. 24 in Santa Monica, California. He was 85. Weinstein’s many contributions include establishing the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies at UCLA, serving on the jury for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and as co-administrator of the architectural selection process for the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his wife and partner of 34 years, Edina, two sons — Alexander and Nikolas, and two granddaughters.
"Los Angeles, Richard S. Weinstein liked to say, “is full of holes.” He meant it as a compliment — at least to a degree.
After working early in his career as an advisor on urban design to New York City Mayor John Lindsay, Weinstein, who died Feb. 24 in Santa Monica at 85, moved to Los Angeles in 1985 to become dean of the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA. After 10 years in that role, he spent another 13 as a professor in the department.
The city he found here was full of empty or under-developed space, with political power fragmented across a wide region — in contrast to the crowded spaces and even more constricted politics of New York.
“In Los Angeles, there is always a chance,” he told a reporter in 2008 with his trademark wry irony. “You can occasionally drive a great building into the gaps.”
In both his UCLA post and as a consultant and confidant to architects and patrons in Los Angeles, he tried to keep those gaps open and those great buildings coming. Weinstein served on the design jury that picked Frank Gehry as the architect for Walt Disney Concert Hall, and as co-chair for the architectural selection committee of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, ultimately designed by Spain’s Rafael Moneo.
Anne Marie Burke of UCLA’s School of the Arts and Architecture confirmed Weinstein’s death and said the cause was “complications from a number of neurological and cardiac health issues.”
In a statement, UCLA credited Weinstein for championing “experimental West Coast architecture” and for putting the department “at the forefront of a movement to incorporate the burgeoning field of computer technology and robotics” into architectural education.
That’s true as far as it goes. But it was Weinstein’s political savvy above all that propelled his career on both coasts.
“Richard’s experience in urban planning and his work with the city of New York and New York government made him very helpful as an advisor to those of us who were starting to get more projects of a public nature,” Gehry said in an email. “He was a great counselor and was able to cut to the chase and get to the essence of what we were being asked to do."— Christopher Hawthorne, Mar. 8, 2018
This post is an excerpt, read the full article at the Los Angeles website.
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