Craig Hodgetts

Architect; Graphic Designer / United States / Hodgetts + Fung Architecture and Design

Craig Hodgetts, Creative Director of Hodgetts + Fung Design and Architecture, is known for employing an imaginative weave of high technology and storytelling to invigorate his designs. With a broad-ranging background in automotive design, theater, and architecture grounded by midwestern traditions, Hodgetts brings dramatic concepts to life by means of an uncompromising application of constructive methodology.

Between 1969 and 1984, Hodgetts published numerous essays and speculative designs in which he anticipated the impact of information technology on the environment and, with partner Robert Mangurian, created the seminal firm of Studio Works, which received three First Design Awards from Progressive Architecture magazine. A shop they created in 1969 for the CBS subsidiary, Creative Playthings, was featured in the Wall Street Journal as the world’s first multi-media entertainment retail environment.

In 1984, with conviction that the expanding worlds of the arts, technology, and a then nascent urbanity would demand a fundamental change in the role of the architect, he set out to integrate the design disciplines, producing with his partner, Hsinming Fung, a portfolio of exhibitions, temporary structures, and cultural facilities that expanded the boundaries of conventional practice. With the ability to translate multiple disciplines into a personal vernacular, he has produced award-winning projects, including UCLA’s Towell Library, the new design of the Hollywood Bowl, the renovation of the Egyptian Theater, and Sinclaire Pavilion at Art Center. Hodgetts + Fung has received numerous awards, including the Chrysler Award for design innovation, the 2006 Gold Medal from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the 2008 AIA CC Firm of the Year Award. Most recent projects include a 35-story mixed-use glass tower for the Yamano School in Tokyo, Japan; a daring new performing arts center in Atherton, California; and the highly regarded Wild Beast Pavilion at the California Institute of the Arts.

Hodgetts, whose essays and critical commentaries have been widely published in journals such as LOG, is currently a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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