Name Ena Dubnoff | ||
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Ena Dubnoff is an American architect based in Santa Monica, California. She is the principal of Ena Dubnoff Architects, located at 2506 4th Street, Santa Monica, California, 90405.
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Ena Dubnoff’s father, John Dubnoff, was a biochemist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Dubnoff’s mother, Belle Dubnoff, was an educator, who established the Dubnoff School for Educational Therapy in 1948 with the mission to provide educational opportunities to children with developmental abilities. Known as the Dubnoff Center for Child Development and Educational Therapy, it has been located at 10526 Dubnoff Way in North Hollywood, Los Angeles since 1962.
Education
Ena Dubnoff studied for a year at the University of California at Berkeley, but came back to Los Angeles area and enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC). She was the only woman in her class. According to her, many of her classmates were returning Korean War veterans. Dubnoff graduated cum laude, earning a Bachelor’s in Architecture in 1960. That same year she was on the team that developed a master plan for USC. While still at USC she received the AIA Medal for Excellence in Architecture award. In 1966 Dubnoff earned a Masters in Urban Design from Columbia University. As a student at Columbia University she traveled widely on the William Kinne Fellows traveling fellowship (1966-1967), and spent a year in India.
Academic teaching
From 1963-1965 Dubnoff taught at the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. She also taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-ARC). In 1981 Dubnoff was hired as the first tenure-track female faculty in architecture at USC. She left USC after teaching for a few years, partly due to lack of support and partly due to ill health.
Architectural work
After graduating from USC, Dubnoff did some work in the offices of Buff & Hensman as an intern/office worker. During this time period she designed a house for her parents, known as the Dubnoff Residence (Pasadena, 1962–63). It is attributed to Buff & Hensman, in part because Dubnoff did not have a license at that time. Description of the residence is included in the 2004 book on Buff & Hensman edited by James Steele; according to the description, it was finished in 1965. In the book, Donald Hensman is quoted as saying: “Their [e.g., the clients’] daughter Ina [sic], had been a student in the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California when both Conrad Buff and I were professors there. It was agreed that we would design the home in collaboration with Ina Dubnoff and oversee all aspects of design.”
After Dubnoff got her license, she designed the main building for the Dubnoff School in association with the firm Flores, Gelman and Green, in 1965. Upon finishing her Masters at Columbia, she worked in New York for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. After moving to Los Angeles she worked for William Pereira Associates and A. Quincy Jones.
Dubnoff established her own practice, ONE Company Architecture (later renamed Ena Dubnoff Architects) in 1984. That year she collaborated with Dolores Hayden on an affordable housing project, which she finished after Hayden pulled out. Dubnoff is a founding member of a four-women collaborative non-profit formed in 1991 for the purpose of designing affordable housing. Called W.O.R.K.S, Women Organizing Resources, Knowledge, and Services, the non-profit has been involved in designing projects for non-profits, particularly low income housing, in Los Angeles and Oregon. Dubnoff’s design work, particularly earlier in her career and as embodied in the Dubnoff Center, is considered exemplary of mid-century Modernism. In addition to her work in architecture, Dubnoff is the co-founder of Westend Printmakers studio in Santa Monica. She has also engaged in woodturning.
Select projects
Awards
Dubnoff is a recipient of various awards and honors, including: