Michael Rotondi, principle of Los Angeles-based RoTo Architecture and former student of Cal Poly Pomona, has been selected to receive the Richard J. Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence from the College of Environmental Design at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Co-founder of SCI-Arc and long-time architectural educator at Arizona State University, Rotondi was selected for his “commitment to architectural education, for the concern he shows in his work for society and the environment, and for the inventiveness of his architecture,” says Cal Poly Pomona professor Sarah Lorenzen.
“In 1965 Phillip Johnson asked Susan Sontag: ‘What good does it do you to believe in good things?...It's feudal and futile. I think it much better to be nihilistic and forget it all.’ Thankfully Rotondi has spent a lifetime not forgetting to care about the students he educates, to care about the problems of humanity, to care about beauty and poetry. Rotondi is a shining example to all of us that you can be unbelievably cool without being a cynic."
Rotondi will be honored at an award ceremony and lecture on November 3, 2014, at 6PM in Cal Poly Pomona’s University Theater.
You can learn more about Rotondi's thoughts on architectural education here on this ArchDaily interview.
