Written by: Sasha Rosen Monday, July 25th, 2011 .
When we first met Tomas Ancona in his sunny Portland office, our initial impression was of a neatly-dressed, mild-mannered man. His office, with its sweeping city views and open layout, has only a conference table at the center of the room, with all the work areas neatly positioned along the perimeter. Tom’s own work space is located through an open partition and consists of all the items you would expect to find in the office of a man who creates experiences for a living: storyboard pages, shelved books, little statuettes, and notebooks filled with sketches and scraps of ideas.
“Would you like to see a presentation?” Tom offered.
We obliged, settling into our ergonomic chairs for over an hour of Ancona + Associates’ history, values, and projects past and present. By the end of the presentation, Evan and I both felt that Tom was more than what we had expected – a hardworking and talented designer – but rather an artist who has focused his formidable talent into the design of museum exhibits and retail spaces.
Hearing that Tom started out his career designing the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, the US Pavilion at Energy Expo 82, and the Automobile In American Life exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, we sensed a strong interest in heritage. Indeed, though Tom studied architecture at Cornell he later transferred to Wesleyan University where he studied American history and fine arts. His dual interest in history and the arts dates back to his childhood, where he grew up in a family of artists. Tom’s enthusiasm for museum design was sparked by his neighbor, who was an exhibit designer and had Tom do some drafting for his company. After college he worked at several prominent architecture and design firms in New York and Boston, Woods & Ramirez and Cambridge Seven Associates. Tom was appointed lead designer before he was 24 years old.
Tom subsequently started Ancona + Associates in San Francisco, focusing primarily on exhibit planning and design for the first eleven years after its inception. During that time he completed numerous projects, among them the Bay Area Discovery Museum and the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center. In 1997 he was invited to become Global Creative Director at Nike’s retail division, which led to his creating six Niketown stores around the world. Stepping down from the position to return to his firm, Tom had gained a serious knowledge of retail design to add to his exhibit design knowledge base. These two areas of interest are a big part of the DNA of Ancona + Associates today.
There are too many prestigious projects to mention, but what I found most fascinating was Tom’s approach: when designing a space, he not only looks at the region in which he is designing and the type of company or museum he is designing for – he dives deep into the history and principles of the place, creating an experience for visitors that fits seamlessly into the place’s culture, as if he had been there since the beginning. The research phase of his work is thus one of the most important stages of the design process, as he fuses his mind with those of the people who created the company or institution he is designing.
Nowhere is Tom’s focus on history more evident than in his design of Boudin at the Wharf in San Francisco. Ancona + Associates’ conception of the experience was not just a retail establishment, but also a museum of sorts, in fact a landmark with the potential to trigger the revitalization of Fisherman’s Wharf. Entering the 28,000 sf bakery, market hall, museum and restaurant immediately gives the visitor a sense that they are in a historical place that is tied very closely to a passion for bread making. Having been there myself, I can honestly say I had never been in awe of bread before that moment.
Tom has been able to apply his approach to a broad range of experiences that cut across both cultural and commercial landscapes – not just in physical experiences, but also on projects that require converging exhibits and retail spaces with the digital world. Currently he is working with a diverse group of clients including the adidas Innovation Team, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA, and a start-up clean energy fund.
When Evan and I left, we agreed that Tom was one of the more creative and clear-thinking people we have met. If you have been inside one of his creations, you probably got the same feeling I did after our recent meeting – that something extraordinary had taken place.
