Marmol Radziner
The Vienna Way House
The Vienna Way house in Venice exemplifies the California trend in integrating the exterior and interior environments through extensive use of floor-to-ceiling glass and windows throughout the home. It typifies the Marmol-Radziner embrace of modernist architectural style in its clean, strong lines and spare decor.
Known for its high-end custom architectural design, Marmol-Radziner has a 20-year history as a Los Angeles-based design/build practice, which has garnered a host of prestigious awards and ranks among the leaders of the Modernist architectural movement.
Led by architects Leo Marmol, and Ron Radziner, the firm offers the full range of design-related services from concept to completion including architectural design, construction, restoration, interior and furniture design, fabrication and landscaping. This allows the firm to maintain a consistent level of quality and style from structure to details and to create fixtures and furniture specific to the project design goals.
Among the firm’s awards is the American Institute of Architects National Honor Award for the restoration of the Kaufmann House in Palm Springs originally designed by Richard Neutra. It has been awarded honors for both architectural and industrial design including an International Design Excellence Award sponsored by BusinessWeek. In addition to producing a range of custom residential projects throughout the Southland and beyond, the firm has provided services for clients such as Tom Ford, former creative director of Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, offices for ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day and retail boutiques for Chan Luu and the Vince Store, Maxfield and James Perse in Malibu.
The firm launched the Marmol-Radziner Prefab division in 2005 to bring its design philosophy to a series of new-home plans. It has completed 12 prefab projects throughout the Southwest, in Southern and Northern California, Nevada and Utah. In 2009, Marmol-Radziner partnered with Dwell magazine to launch the Dwell Homes Collection Skyline Series, a series of pre-designed plans that can fit on smaller, urban lots. The company has now partnered with several factories, including Haven Custom Homes, to make its prefab homes available in markets nationwide. Marmol-Radziner numbers 35 members at its headquarters in West Los Angeles and the fabrication facilities in Vernon, and a construction crew of 30.
The phrase “built environment” is a popular term in the architectural lexicon. While the natural landscape is the larger context in life, the built environment is where most of us live and work. The role of the architect impacts us in a significant way despite the fact that we rarely consider the source of the structures we use or the complexity of the challenge accepted in designing them. Among the architectural parameters shaping this built environment are responsibility to the client, the user and the public at large — all while attempting to create a work that approaches the level of art.
Currently Marmol-Radziner is engaged in the restoration of the Malibu Village complex at Cross Creek. Malibu Magazine met with Ron Radziner, the design principal, to discuss the firm’s evolution and the Cross Creek project in particular. Radziner received his master of architecture in 1986 at the University of Colorado and his bachelor’s degree in 1984 at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. In 2007, he was named to the prestigious College of the Fellows of the American Institute of Architects. He was honored as an inductee of the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2009.
Marmol-Radziner was launched in 1989 when the principals, who first met at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, reconnected in Los Angeles and began working on small residential projects and developing their commitment to modernism.
Radziner says, “I think we both have always appreciated the strong California modernist tradition. It’s one of the wonderful things about California. You have this climate that allows for innovation and use of exterior space as much as interior space. Whatever one wants to say about Los Angeles, you have many creative, smart people in this area who are interested in building an innovative piece of architecture, and you see that in residential architecture from 1900 to the present. If you look at Frank Lloyd Wright and Schindler and Neutra ... if you look at Schindler’s home that he built for himself in 1920 in West Hollywood, it’s wildly radical for that time, and it’s still radical as a beautiful little concrete-and-glass structure. This is a city that embraced innovation and it was something we knew existed, and we continued it.”
