2020 ICON - Frances Anderton
Photo by Kremer/Johnson
She has humanized LA’s design stories and covered the dramas that can surround them for the past fifteen years. Now, she’s ready to see the next chapter of our city’s story - and her own - unfold.
Known quite literally as the voice of design and architecture in LA, venerated doyenne of design Frances Anderton is the 2020 recipient of the ICON award.
In her role as host of KCRW’s Design and Architecture show, Anderton has chronicled the people, projects, spaces, and places that have shaped the course of Los Angeles itself over the past two decades. Since her arrival in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and permanently moving here in 1991, Anderton has observed our city evolve exponentially from a cultural backwater into an internationally recognized global design city; an honor which she has noted is indeed a double-edged sword.
During her tenure at KCRW, she has interviewed a litany of design luminaries, including Frank Gehry, Jon Jerde, Ruth E. Carter (2018 ICON recipient), Ma Yansong, Simon Doonan, Lita Albuquerque, Syd Mead, Esther Choi, Francis Kéré, TJ Walker, Sofia Enriquez, Elizabeth Timme, Barbara Bestor, Thom Mayne, and Bari Ziperstein, to name just a scant few.
For many years, she produced KCRW's acclaimed current affairs shows, To The Point, and Which Way, LA?, hosted by Warren Olney. With producer Avishay Artsy she created Bridges and Walls, a series about the barriers and connections--both metaphorical and physical--shaping life in California today; it was supported by the California Arts Council, which is supporting Wasted, a forthcoming DnA series on creative ways to deal with the stuff we waste. Jill of all trades and mistress of them all, Anderton also curates events and exhibitions; these include Sink Or Swim: Designing For a Sea Change, a critically received exhibition about resilient architecture, shown from December 2014 to May 2015 at the Annenberg Space for Photography. She has served as correspondent for the New York Times and Dwell magazine. Her books include Grand Illusion: A Story of Ambition, and its Limits, on LA’s Bunker Hill, based on a studio she co-taught with Frank Gehry and partners at USC School of Architecture; and You Are Here, about the work of the late Jon Jerde. She has also edited independent podcasts about the Desert X art exhibition and Rodeo Drive.
Anderton was raised in Bath, England, and studied architecture at the Bartlett School at University College London. She subsequently became associate editor of the Architectural Review. Her first assignment was life-changing: to produce a special report on new architecture in Los Angeles. And the rest, so they say, is history.
When asked about what’s next for LA, and for herself, Anderton had this to say.
“The pandemic has made LA yet again a magnet for people looking for a big city culture with a garden city feel. But the garden city has to grow — up. I hope LA will meet its destiny with imaginative density: multi-story housing designed for indoor-outdoor living and working — for all pay grades. If the brilliant Philip K. Dick foresaw a world of Androids dreaming of electric sheep, I, a human, dream of goats, chomping at weeds on the green walls and roofs of next LA.”
Read this great 2018 interview with much-missed Curbed LA to learn why she thinks valuing LA’s good design matters more now than ever, then tune in to the LA Design Festival Awards (live via Zoom) on Thursday, September 24 to see and hear Frances accept her award. Stay on for the virtual Design Block Party (more on that later). Registration opens on September 1.
You can also check out these interviews with Midnight Charette and Cityspeak.