1. education
2. high school

NEWS RELEASE
June 1, 2015
Media Contact
Claudia Jurmain
claudia@rancholosalamitos.org
562.431.3541
How the Places of Southern California Are Made
in Conversations in Place 2015 at Rancho Los Alamitos
Long Beach, Calif. – Continuing a tradition of lively, informative conversation at the
historic Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach, Conversations in Place 2015 will question “How
Places Are Made.” Claudia Jurmain, Director of Special Projects and Publications at the Rancho
and founder of the Conversations series returns as the series director.
She’s planned explorations of place making that are in depth and wide in scope. “We’ll
encounter Architecture in Place, both in the past and in the future and see how creative
gardeners are Planting Perspectives as they stake out new definitions of home. We’ll consider
Livable Places in urban/suburban communities connected by old and new legacies. And we’ll
view Place Making through the lens of popular art and culture to reveal Southern California’s
shifting state of mind and sense of place.”
Conversations in Place 2015 brings together celebrated architects and designers, noted
scholars, successful CEO’s and entrepreneurs, as well as orchardists and botanists. D.J. Waldie,
one of the featured guest moderators in this year’s series, says that “How we make our place in
Southern California involves economics and nostalgia, science and futurism, sophisticated
artistry and popular culture. In fact, all of us are continually engaged in the project of making
this place that we call our home.”
The four conversations in the 2015 series “How Places Are Made” are:
2015 Conversations in Place at Rancho Los Alamitos
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Architecture in Place
Sunday, August 23, 2015 – 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Be it vernacular or virtuoso, signature or contextual, restored, repurposed or new built,
architecture redefines and creates a sense of place. In Conversation will be:
 Marc Appleton, AIA. His mastery of architectural traditions has earned him awards from the
American Institute of Architects and prominent features in Town and Country and
Architectural Digest, which has consistently named him one of AD’s top 100 Designers.
 Alan Pullman, AIA. The founder of Studio One Eleven in Long Beach has over 20 years of
award-winning experience in planning mixed-use, urban infill, and adaptive reuse projects.
 Michael Bohn, AIA. The design director for Studio One Eleven, he led the project team for
the new retail interiors at the Long Beach Airport, which the BBC included in its recent list of
the top-ten airport experiences in the world.
Planting Perspectives
Sunday, September 27, 2015 – 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
Economics, prestige, and changing cultural and environmental values have taken root in
the gardens of Southern California. But so have unearned nostalgia and symbols of inequality.
In Conversation will be:
 James P. Folsom, Telleen/Jorgensen Director of the Huntington Botanical Gardens. He was
central to the initiative which established the Huntington as a national leader in botanical
research and education.
 Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Professor of Sociology at USC and Associate Director at the
Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. She is the author of Paradise Transplanted:
Migration and the Making of California Gardens, which explores how gardens not only reveal
status and beauty but also exclusion, exploitation, and conflict.
 Laura Pulido, Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. Her research investigates
how communities of color mobilize to create a more socially and environmentally just world.
Livable Places
Sunday, October 18, 2015 – 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
When it comes to making livable places, how should we nourish both perennial values
and Southern California’s diverse ideas of community, home, and family life? In Conversation
will be:
2015 Conversations in Place at Rancho Los Alamitos
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 Mia Lehrer, founder of Mia Lehrer + Associates. She is leading efforts to develop an open
space network to re-energize the city’s natural and cultural systems based on the Los Angeles
River Revitalization Master Plan.
 Joel Kotkin, Roger Hobbs Distinguished Fellow in Urban Studies at Chapman University and
Executive Director of the Center for Opportunity Urbanism, a Houston-based think tank. He is
an international authority on global economic, political, and social trends.
 Martin D. Howard, CEO/President of Howard│CDM in Long Beach. He helped instigate the
economic revival of Long Beach Boulevard and re-vitalization of the historic Bixby Knolls
neighborhood and a founder of BIKEable Communities
 Julia Huang, founder of Long Beach-based Renzei Holdings, Inc. and CEO of interTrend
Communications and Imprint Ventures Lab. A frequent speaker and consultant to cultural,
political, and leadership advisory groups, she was named one of the 500 most influential Asian
Americans by Avenue Magazine.
 Don Neff, owner of Neff Ranch, Ltd, which sells exclusively to local farmers markets, and
CEO/President of La Jolla Pacific, Ltd., which specializes in construction risk management and
sustainable building.
 D. J. Waldie, noted author and a life-long resident of Lakewood.
Place Making
Sunday, November 8, 2015 – 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Popular arts and culture express the region’s shifting state of mind and the ever-present
gap between where we are and where we want to be. In Conversation will be:
 William Deverell, Chairman of the History Department at USC and Director of the
Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West. His scholarly works on California history
have become essential references that define the political, social and environmental narrative
of the 19th-and 20th-century American West.
 Judy Baca, one of the nation’s leading muralists, is best known for her large-scale public art
works. She founded the first City of Los Angeles Mural Program in 1974, which evolved into
the Social and Public Art Resource Center, which has been creating sites of public memory
since 1976.
 Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. Her blog “Culture: High & Low”
looks at the intersection of art and pop culture ranging from museums to murals, art books to
comics, and film documentaries to Latin pop music.
 Rob Reynolds, acclaimed artist, has been exhibited around the world. His work often forges
connections between art production and historical material.
 Sarah Schrank, Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. Her work
synthesizes the evolution of art and place in Los Angeles to reveal how civic, political, and
artistic values have intersected to create today’s urban and cultural landscape.
2015 Conversations in Place at Rancho Los Alamitos
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Conversations in Place 2015 is supported by IMPRINT Culture Lab and Michael F.
Sfregola
Overview of the 2015 Conversations in Place series
Now in its fourth year, Conversations in Place 2015 continues its illuminating
explorations of how and why Southern California came to be on Sunday, August 23 and through
Sunday, November 8.
In the first conversation, on August 2, Marc Appleton with co-moderators Alan Pullman
and Michael Bohn will consider the values and language of architecture as they continue to
reshape landscapes to evoke where we have been, to forecast tomorrow, to suggest the
historical and contemporary forms, and to acknowledge the natural world around us.
On Sunday, September 27, the second of four Conversations in Place will bring together
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and James Folsom with Laura Pulido and moderator Claudia
Jurmain to answer the question “how do the gardens we plant symbolize who we want to be as
Californians and mirror what we’ve actually become?” True gardeners know that much more
grows in the garden than what’s been planted there.
On October 18, Mia Lehrer along with Joel Kotkin, Martin Howard, Julia Huang, Don
Neff, and moderator D.J. Waldie will consider if an energizing sense of place – tied to history
but forward looking as well – will be found in new public spaces that reflect sustainable designs,
in new landscape models (for example, the Los Angeles River Revitalization Master Plan), and in
communities that will redefine Southern California in the 21st century.
On Sunday, November 8, William Deverell with Judy Baca, Carolina A. Miranda, Rob
Reynolds and Sarah Schrank will be our guides through the exuberant cacophony that is
popular culture in Southern California. Everything is in the mix here – from high to low – before
its broadcast into the global economy of images, sounds, and fads. The effects have been
unpredictable and exhilarating.
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Attending Conversations in Place 2015
Reservations to individual conversations in the series are $25. Subscriptions to the fourpart series are $80.
Tickets may be purchased online at rancholosalamitos.org or by calling Rancho Los
Alamitos at 562.431.3541.
Director of Conversations in Place 2015:
Claudia Jurmain, founder of Conversations in Place and the series director, is the
Director of Special Projects and Publications at Rancho Los Alamitos in Long Beach, California.
She began her work as a research historian at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait
Gallery, and since has produced award-winning projects for museums, sites, and educational
institutions across the country, including the concept design and content for the new Rancho
Center at Rancho Los Alamitos. She is co-editor of California - A Place, A People, A Dream
(1986), author of Planting Perspectives: The Landscape at Rancho Los Alamitos (2000), and coauthor of Rancho Los Alamitos – Ever Changing and Always the Same and O, My Ancestor:
Recognition and Renewal for the Gabrielino-Tongva People of the Los Angeles Area, which both
received national awards from the American Association for State and Local History.
About Rancho Los Alamitos
A 7.5-acre site, Rancho Los Alamitos was once part of the largest Spanish land grant
awarded in California. The site is twice listed on the National Register of Historic Places – for its
significance as Povuu’ngna and for the cultural and natural evolution of its landscape.
Rancho Los Alamitos includes four acres of historic gardens primarily designed by the
Olmsted Brothers from the 1920s through the 1930s, the core of an adobe rancho house from
about 1800, and an early 20th century barns area. The Rancho Center, with permanent
exhibition space and the restored barns area, features the blending of regional culture and the
natural environment through time, including the Native American, Spanish and Mexican
periods, the ranching and farming era, and mid-20th-century life. The Rancho presents
powerful stories of California, its landscape, and inhabitants.
2015 Conversations in Place at Rancho Los Alamitos
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For More Information
Photographs and opportunities for interviews are available upon request. For program
updates, go to rancholosalamitos.org/events/2015_conversations.
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