Click the arrow below to hear Joe’s inter­view with Rajan.

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Deva Rajan arrived at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley in 1960 after a year in Mex­ico on an arche­o­log­i­cal dig, another year study­ing in Flo­rence, Italy, and a stint at Pomona Col­lege, where he earned an art his­tory degree.

In the early 60s, the Uni­ver­sity California’s art depart­ment was hotbed of tal­ent led by fac­ulty mem­bers such as sculp­tor Peter Voulkas.  Rajan stud­ied along with Stephen De Stae­bler, Jim Melchert and other sculp­tors who would even­tu­ally estab­lish them­selves in the inter­na­tional art scene.  In 1962 Rajan earned an M.A. in sculp­ture.  In 1963 his cast alu­minum and iron piece was exhib­ited at the Bien­nale de Paris.

But later Rajan turned from fine art sculp­ture to fine build­ing, found­ing Canyon Con­struc­tion, a San Fran­cisco Bay Area firm noted for help­ing to pio­neer green build­ing prac­tices.  His own home, a sculpted wood aerie in the red­wood for­est of Canyon, Calif.,  was fea­tured in the book, “Hand­made Homes: The Nat­ural Way to Build Houses,” by Art Boer­icke.  Over the years artists such as Voulkas and De Stae­bler called on Rajan’s exper­tise to build safe, func­tional studios.

Men­tions: Greene and Greene, Bernard May­beck, Bruce John­son, Jim Kirk­wald, Dan Richards, Seth Melchert, Jim Grant.

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