Central Office of Architecture (Contemporary World Architects Series)

Central Office of Architecture (COA) has relentlessly pursued architecture as a recherché patiente. The three partners, Ron Golan, Eric A. Kahn, and Russell N. Thomsen, have engaged architecture on a wide spectrum manifested as built works, theoretical urban projects, writings, and teaching. They rely on both their differences and commonalities, always seeking to focus the work on the contemporary and continuing project of modernity. Strongly influenced by European antecedents (all three attended school, taught, and apprenticed there), they have sought to bring strong architectural thinking and coherence to Los Angeles, a metropolitan condition characterized by the absence of these principles.

Eschewing the so-called L.A. school and its idea of architecture as an object, COA instead has developed a philosophy based on architecture as a tool, driven by utility and capable of promoting the joys of living. Like the office of Charles and Ray Eames, they choose to approach each project on its own terms, creatively solving its problems with clarity, rigor, and elegance.