New Light

Lila Cohen, a Berkeley, California-based architect, author, producer and director, recently sat down with writer Christine Eddington to discuss Cohen’s upcoming feature-length documentary film about her beloved great uncle, the American architect, author, educator and artist Herb Greene whose work is part of our exhibition Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California.

These interview excerpts have been edited for brevity and clarity. Enjoy viewing it in full, via accompanying video here.

Christine Eddington: To me, this film project (working title: Remembering the Future with Herb Greene) almost feels like a love letter. What is it like making a film about someone you dearly love?

Lila Cohen: Making this film has only enhanced the awe that I feel towards Uncle Herb as a creative individual, as a visionary … I also feel this admiration and love for him, just as someone who is like a father to me, you know, someone that is my mentor and my North Star. It has brought so much more opportunity for us to work in a different avenue, you know? I mean, it's strange to film conversations that are intended to be intimate, but, you know, it kind of it adds a layer to it that I think draws out a different part of our relationship.

Uncle Herb was part of the Organic Architecture movement. Can you tell us a little bit about what that nomenclature means?

Organic architecture is a complex, all-encompassing approach to architecture. It's not a style, and that's what makes it difficult to understand. Usually, when we talk about architecture and we name it, we refer to a style. Is it Gothic? Is it Art Deco? Is it Beaux Arts? And we know [because] we're looking for certain cues of what makes it Art Deco.

What's difficult about organic architecture is that there isn't an agreed upon definition. And I think the reason is because it varies. [Organic Architecture] needs to be a response to the unique conditions of a site. And, it's the people who are going to inhabit that architecture that, for Uncle Herb especially, were so important to him … The history of that region is really important to recall, and something that he also describes as the existential qualities of a person, to draw those out so that you end up with something that's incredibly unique, just like each one of us is unique … That requires a certain rigor and sensitivity and care.

It takes an artist to really look carefully and then go all out, to try and draw that out. And once you connect with nature and pay attention to what fits in, to what is working with nature, instead of trying to control nature or impose on it, then you're off to a good start.

One of his iconic structures, the Prairie House, was something you got to walk through for the first time some years ago with your great uncle. What was that like?

I'd seen a lot of photos of the Prairie House, and had heard other people talk a lot about it before I ever went in to see it … By the time I was able to visit … just eight years ago, I walk in, and there I am … with Uncle Herb, and all these memories of what I had heard came rushing toward me, and yet it was still a blur compared to what the experience was of being there with him … you walk in and you immediately feel this sense of yourself, actually, and part of that is because of the warmth …the feeling that's captured in the shape of the house, all the texture in the house, the very strong cedar smell that, you know, exudes from the walls. [It was] this really intense sensory experience, the way that the light comes in; it's all curated in such a way where you can appreciate something internal and also external together. Every time I go into the house, there are aspects of that that come out, and it is very moving. You know, it’s why women would visit, and often, you know, have tears in their eyes, because you do feel like it's something you can't really describe, and so it just kind of moves you to tears.

How did Uncle Herb become interested in architecture? What’s his superhero origin story?

I love thinking of Uncle Herb as having a superhero origin story. When we think of superheroes, there are different kinds. But when I think of Superman, he has this very humble side to him. And I think Uncle Herb, who is kind of a superhero to me, has such a humility to him … When I listen to him, and I hear him describe being a child and growing up in upstate New York, he and especially now that he's 95, he's distilled everything down to what stands out the most, almost to like what's most important. And it's his memories of the hills that surrounded that little town. It's his memory of the frozen pond that he would skate on as a little boy. It's playing on these boulders, these that were near his house, and then translating that into his medium of creative expression, clay.

I think what's really interesting about this is it wasn't Legos. You talk to a lot of architects, and they often say their original kind of fascination with architecture came from playing with Legos … That's wonderful, but that's a really different tool. And because Uncle Herb was working with clay, I think, looking back at it, he always says he has a strong sense of mass and form … those are what I would call [his] superpowers. He, luckily, was given lumps of clay to play with, and he would make forms that were provocative enough where even his mother, who was not an architect, was not an artist, would look at these things that he was making, and she'd say, "We better watch out for Herbie!"

Lila Cohen practices architecture in San Francisco, CA. She is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). Her architecture work is committed to collaborating with community nonprofits who serve the Bay Area’s most vulnerable populations through supportive housing and multipurpose developments. She co-authored with Herb Greene “Generations: Six Decades of Collage Art and Architecture Generated with Perspectives from Science” (ORO Editions, 2015). She has presented Greene’s work at the Monterey Design Conference, Palm Springs Modernism Week, the Architecture + The City Festival in San Francisco, UCSF, The School of Architecture at Taliesin, and the University of Oklahoma. Lila is a board member of the Prairie House Preservation Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoration preservation and development of Herb Greene’s Prairie House built in 1961 in Norman, OK. A designer of small spaces that promote the use of repurposed materials, she appeared on Tiny House Hunting and has worked with international organizations like the Mmofra Foundation in Accra, Ghana to promote Herb Greene’s Armature concept. Lila is currently working on directing and producing a feature-length documentary film about organic architecture through the lens of Herb Greene’s life and career. Cohen earned an Architecture degree, cum laude, from the University of Arizona.

Learn more about Herb Greene's work here. Learn more about Remembering the Future with Herb Greene here.

Help the Prairie House Preservation Society in their efforts to restore the iconic Prairie House here.

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Exhibitions Outré West interview

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