Michael Rotondi

Among other honors and awards, Michael Rotondi received the Richard J Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence from Cal Poly Pomona in 2014, the AIA/LA Gold Medal for Presidential Honors in 2009, and in 1992 was honored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters with their Academy-Institute Award in Architecture. Between 1981-1991 while practicing at Morphosis, the firm received 12 awards from Progressive Architecture magazine and 11 from the American Institute of Architects.

Rotondi’s earlier work is highlighted by industrial concepts and materials, and asymmetry, and is considered to be one of the primary figures of Los Angeles' Postmodernism school. He began his professional architecture practice in 1973 with Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM), then from 1974-1976 practiced both independently and in collaboration with Peter de Bretteville and Craig Hodgetts. He joined the already existing firm Morphosis as a partner with Thom Mayne, one of the co-founders of SCI-Arc, in 1976, where he worked through 1991. On November 1, 1991 Rotondi founded a new firm, RoTo Architects, with Clark Stevens and Brian Reiff. He views RoTo as "a collaboration of people working in an open practice where ideas move about for anyone’s use without the need to feel proprietary. Authorship is less important than collaboration.”

In 1972, Rotondi was one of fifty students to leave Cal Poly Pomona and attend the newly founded Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). Since SCI-Arc would not become accredited until after his graduation, Rotondi, like all early SCI-Arc graduates, received a certificate of completion (in 1973) rather than a diploma. Since his initial involvement as one of the original SCI-Arc students, Rotondi has been active in advancing and improving the school. He was director of the graduate program from 1978-1987, then succeeded Founding Director Kappe as the second Director from 1987-1997. “I moved from student to teacher, to graduate school director to director of the institute. I was part of and a witness to this extraordinary process.”

Michael Rotondi (born June 26, 1949) is an American architect and educator. He has been a member of two international practices (Morphosis from 1976-1991, and RoTo Architects 1991–present, which he founded). He attended the Southern California Institute of Architecture when it began (SCI-Arc) in 1972 and, later, was director of the graduate program there.