Hernan Diaz Alonso Named SCI-Arc Director

While the appointment of Diaz Alonso was tipped as early as June, it was made official last week in an announcement by Jerold B. Neuman, chairman of the SCI-Arc Board of Trustees: "The Board of Trustees has finalized its search for the next Director of SCI-Arc, and after over a decade of extraordinary service by Eric Owen Moss, we are placing SCI-Arc’s future in the amazing mind, heart and hands of Hernan Diaz Alonso."

Moss, director since 2002*, said in a statement from SCI-Arc: "SCI-Arc’s task, in perpetuity, is to go where we haven’t been, and report on what we find. Hernan Diaz Alonso is the perfect architect to continue this expedition."

Diaz Alonso, founder and principal of Xefirotarch, is currently Graduate Programs Chair at SCI-Arc, a role he assumed after coordinating the school's graduate thesis project for several years. Before his tenure at SCI-Arc, he taught at Columbia University GSAPP and has held visiting professorships at Yale and Knowlton School of Architecture at OSU.

Diaz Alonso has only built temporary installations and exhibitions, so most of his work with Xefirotarch remains in the digital realm. He describes his distinctive designs, many of them competition entries, as "based in an appreciation for the perversity of mutant form." Not surprisingly, SCI-Arc credits him with spearheading the school's transition to digital technologies. Among numerous awards, in 2012 he was given an "Educator of the Year" award from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

*Directors of SCI-Arc since its founding in 1972: