Authors on Architecture: Crespo and Robles on Kocher

Date: Sep 21, 2025

Location:

United States Online program

Join SAH/SCC as we explore the work of A. Lawrence Kocher (1885-1969) as detailed in the new book A. Lawrence Kocher: American Architect (AR+D Publishing, 2025) by authors Luis Pancorbo Crespo and Inés Martín Robles.

The book offers a new conceptual and historical framework for the study of Kocher’s body of work, resituating him as one of the main protagonists in the history of American modern architecture and revealing the profound relationship between Kocher’s designs and existing American domestic traditions. Kocher’s concept of the vernacular included the different residential types of Colonial and Early Republican America, as well as other kinds of transitional dwelling. This book tries to provide evidence about Kocher’s intention of using these vernacular artifacts, alongside the concepts of prefabrication and industrialization, as a base to construct a new national architecture on which to graft the European modernist tradition.

Many SAH/SCC members will know Kocher’s work from his partnership with Albert Frey, FAIA. Their most famous collaboration was the Aluminaire House from 1931, now on view in Palm Springs. Kocher’s work as an independent designer has gotten very little critical attention, and this book devotes several chapters to this little-known part of Kocher’s practice.

Crespo and Robles are associate professors at the School of Architecture of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Their professional practice, Pancorbo Architects, focuses on the submission of international architectural competitions. Since 2004, they’ve won 17 awards in different competitions and 20 awards for their built work, which has been published in more than 60 international architectural magazines.

Crespo & Robles on Kocher—Sunday, September 21, 2025; 1-2:30 PM Pacific; $5. Go to https://www.sahscc.org/site/index.php?function=event_details&id=547 and pay via PayPal, Zoom link sent upon registration.