ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT :

DANIEL PAUL
MA Program in Art History - 2004

For more than a decade, Daniel Paul has been an important force in volunteer efforts to preserve Los Angeles’ cultural and architectural heritage. Now that he has graduated from our MA Program in Art History (2004), Daniel is using that experience to carve out a unique career within the architectural preservation movement.   While he was still an undergraduate at Cal State Fullerton, Daniel became the volunteer Director of Bottle Village, one of California’s most significant folk art environments. He devoted enormous time and energy attempting to protect and preserve Bottle Village, and wrote the successful nomination that placed the site on the National Register of Historic Places. Daniel’s next major volunteer accomplishment was serving as Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee where, in the words of Ken Bernstein, the Conservancy’s Director of Advocacy,” He has played a crucial role in advocating for the preservation of threatened Modernist landmarks”.   In 2001 Daniel entered the department’s MA Program in Art History and completed his degree by writing a groundbreaking thesis: “The Aesthetics of Efficiency: The Early Development of Late-Modern Glass Skin Architecture”.  Here Daniel argues for the value of an important architectural style still “too recent” to warrant notice by historians and preservationists. His master’s thesis really defines Daniel’s cause—to create appreciation for Los Angeles’ Modernist heritage BEFORE most of the great buildings are gone. So far, an article (in online journal LA Forum for Architecture) and a panel presentation at the California Preservation Foundation Conference have resulted from Daniel’s thesis, and he plans to bring out more publications on his thesis topic in the future.   Since graduating, Daniel has been building a career in the field of architectural preservation. He currently is a Cultural Resources Consultant for the California Archives and TBA West. Working for TBA West, he served as Research Associate for the Preservation Design Guidelines project for Samoa, a turn of the century lumber town located in Humboldt County. In addition he is teaching architectural history and beginning to take on work as a consultant to private clients. All the while Daniel continues his active volunteer work on the Modern Committee at the LA Conservancy.