The Artist's Architect

Jeff Guga knows when to go with—or against—the grain. Susan Morgan basks in the surprising serenity of his spaces.

- Jeff Guga

An unwieldy but wonderfully apt hashtag appears on an Instagram photo of Jon & Vinny’s, the Los Angeles eatery designed by the architect Jeff Guga and prized for its tranquil interior: #luckylouiskahnrayoflight. Across the narrow, skylighted dining room, handsomely fitted out in unadorned white oak, broken bands of natural light cast a Morse code– like pattern, a sprightly reminder of one of Louis Kahn’s irresistible maxims: “The sun never knew how great it was until it struck the side of a building.” The afternoon sun striking Guga’s harmoniously composed room does appear to be delighted.

Since he established his own architectural office in 2004, Guga’s eloquent handling of elemental forms and straightforward materials has been evident in a wide variety of projects: He’s configured artist studios, enlivened timeworn Mediterranean villas, and finessed the ideal addition— a light-filled box—to a land marked mid century house. His career and dedicated following have developed steadily in a rather rhizomic fashion, constantly branching out, connecting, reconnecting, and flourishing in new ways. After Guga designed a New York pop-up store for Taschen, the book publisher Benedikt Taschen recommended him to Jon & Vinny’s chef-owners Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo. For an architect who is a fervent bibliophile by his own admission, a bookstore had not been much of a conceptual stretch; a restaurant, however, prompted doubts. “A lot of restaurant design is about entertainment,” Guga explains. “And I don’t want to entertain, I want to calm people.” His refined plan for a stylish 21st-century pizza joint was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Outstanding Restaurant Design Award in 2016. The following year, the once- hesitant architect designed a second L.A. restaurant, the equally serene and acclaimed Kismet, and garnered a second nomination.