As the holiday season sees us thinking about community-building, we spoke to Max Houtzager, who builds community all year long. Houtzager is, among other things, the founder of Marinship Studios, located on the waterfront of Sausalito. Aimed to continue the legendary Gate 5, an artists commune that brought together such thinkers as Ruth Asawa, Maya Angelou, and Allen Ginsburg, Marinship Studios provides a space for creative people to come together and grow. Studio AHEAD: Are you originally from Northern California?

Max Houtzager: My earliest memories of California were visiting my grandparents in Calistoga. I actually only moved here when I was 9. I have faint memories from living in other places before that which surely left their mark on me in subtle ways; however, I think that the most memorable and formative experiences, which I constantly refer back to, took place growing up in Northern California.

Almost from the day I moved to Marin I became absorbed in the mountains and ocean. Most of my free time was spent biking, surfing, or exploring various spots in nature with friends (or searching for more information and ideas, making plans, and preparing gear to do so). To be honest, locally I didn’t find an extensive creative community that I identified with in Marin, or at least wanted to engage with early on, which is one reason I decided to move to Japan after college. Ironically it was only after I started going back and forth between Japan and the Bay Area that I discovered and got excited about Marinship and certain pockets of West Marin.

SA: Tell us about Marinship Studios. What’s the story behind its inception and its context within the long history of Gate 5, which has been a haven for creative people?

MH: There are too many amazing artists, thinkers, and makers that were and still are significant to the Marinship to list here, not to mention numerous stories about how it all transpired.

As for the Marinship Studios origin story in particular, I think it all goes back to the barge. In the early 50s, Frances Anshen was introduced to the area by Jean Varda, who had recently moved onto a nearby boat with Gordon Onslow Ford. She made the decision to buy a sinking barge and a parcel of land where she could dock it. She converted it into her residence with her husband at the time, Bob Anshen (of Anshen and Allen Architects). They proceeded to rent slips on either side of the barge to other houseboats, and eventually they built some structures on the land as well. From the stories and photos I’ve come across of Frances and the community immediately around her (looking through the Pirkle Jones archives at UCSC, old photo albums from people in the area, etc.), I’d be pretty comfortable to say that the spirit of the place continues.

When building out the studios it was very clear that we didn’t need to do anything more than create basic spaces for people already here who needed space and for people who gravitated most naturally to the area. So far I think it all feels like a natural extension of what was already here.

SA: What is your role in the institution?

MH: I am the founder and program director. Harbor master and studio manager would be a much cooler title in my opinion, but we’re lucky to have Julian Gilbert for that, who’s much better at it than me!

SA: What was the process of designing and reinvigorating the space? You’ve worked with Takashi Yanai of EYRC Architects, Terremoto Landscape Architects, and Commune. All intentional firms with strong ethos.

MH: Our approach to Marinship Studios is highly iterative, and the team came together organically over the course of a year-and-a-half or so. It started with the recommendation of Commune by Robin Petravic from Heath Ceramics, our neighbor up the street on Gate 5. I was working in Tokyo just after the intro was made, and Roman Alonso also happened to be there. We met for tea at a shared studio space I was working from and it was immediately apparent to me that our ways of thinking aligned. The two walls adjacent to where we were sitting were lined with shelves brimming with books, one of which was a surprise to see—the first book Roman ever published in his days before interior design. Later on, back in California, he realized that he had also seen a photo of the barge in a Pirkle Jones photobook that he helped publish. I feel like I can identify with his approach to design given his background in publishing and communications, and also his sense of California.

Commune then led to Terremoto for landscape design. When I first met David and Alain on site, it was immediately clear that we see eye to eye and could collaborate closely and try things that are new and different, but also pared back at the same time, and be mutually very excited about it at every stage of the process—from brainstorming, to reviewing ideas, to selecting trees and stones together, to the physical installation, which some friends and I implemented largely on our own according to Terremoto’s plans. Once we knew for sure that it was necessary to pursue more intensive renovation and some new construction, Terremoto led to Takashi Yanai. Initially we just wanted to rebuild the main studio building, and Takashi is focused on residences, so our first meeting wasn’t really intended to be a conversation about working together. In addition to our having a number of overlapping friends and interests in both California and Japan, Marinship Studios immediately seemed like a unique opportunity to collaborate. Takashi quickly understood that my vision for the program was to create studios and communal spaces for a specific but flexible creative community that continues the narrative of the area, almost like a residence for a client with a specific idea for their home that is also informed by the local environment.

Looking back on it now, I have a feeling that my lack of experience with a project like this, combined with Takashi’s interests, allowed us to approach the light-industrial-zoned property with a residential approach—creating a “home” for a specific creative community with a unique narrative.

SA: What role does Marinship Studios play in fostering a sense of community for Northern Californian artists and makers? What do you see for its future?

MH: I think that one key way that we help foster a sense of community is that we don’t have a specific agenda or any kind of rigid programming. There are studios to rent and common areas. When the timing is right, various artists come and go, collaborations happen, photo or video shoots take place, occasional events are held. We’ve had a number of artists change studios within the property as their work and therefore their needs change. There is a loose framework to it all, but for the most part things happen organically. From my perspective that’s really important for true community to form and for an honest and cohesive identity (or identities) from the area to emerge.

SA: The mediums you work in, do they relate to this sense of community?

MH: I always found myself with a camera of some kind in hand, capturing the environments, friends, and life happening around me (riding trails, spending time in the ocean) in still images and video. It was and still is a practice to confirm what I see, and to explore how looking at things in different ways can make one feel.

Over time I realized that I was always seeking ways to more deeply understand and/or communicate one perspective of the essence of something—the nuances of a scene or the way something is depicted, but also the bigger picture and importance of the broader context. My interest in the various paths to achieving this broadened when I studied Media Studies and Japanese in college, and learned more about how significantly different mediums, applications, and people’s diverse backgrounds can affect perspective and communication.

I found myself eager to work with other mediums in addition to, and in conjunction with, photographs and films, such as creating physical spaces, experiences, etc.

SA: Tell us about your fascination with Japanese culture. A creative connection between here and there? Have you been to Naoshima, the art island with architecture built into the hills by Tadao Ando? We always think about what it would look like if there were a Naoshima-style art pilgrimage experience in West Marin.

MH: Some obvious reasons would be the connection to nature, and the fact that the culture, language, and environment that it all comes from are the opposite of ours in so many ways. Not to mention the depth.

And yet it’s actually not far from California, geographically and culturally in some ways. While I’m no expert on the subject, I think that when linking Japanese design to Western design it seems like the first choice for many people recently has been to look at Northern Europe. Northern European and Japanese design share a very obvious sense of minimalism and simplicity, but for me there is a connection to California that feels like it goes much deeper: from the community of architects who worked in or visited Japan, like Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra, and the architects they collaborated with in Japan, like Junzo Yoshimura; to the interaction between artists like Isamu Noguchi, Saburo Hasegawa, Kitaoji Rosanjin, and JB Blunk, etc. It might be a coincidence that sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a Japanese and a Scandinavian design (there are only so many ways to make a very reduced shape out of curves and straight lines), while the relationship with California is almost like positive meets negative with just the right amount of common ground. California is a new place and is free-spirited, wild, experimental, and people are maybe more immediately integrated with nature; and Japan has the deeper, more subtle understanding of nature, and pushes techniques further, traits that may come from a culture that has developed over centuries. The two are therefore opposites in one way, but have just enough commonality to intermingle together perfectly.

I have been to Naoshima and over the past two years have actually been spending a lot of time working on a similar island further south called Ikuchijima (most often known for the single town on the island, Setoda). I have also helped start some projects there like a luxury inn, Azumi, with the original founder of Aman; as well as a rebranding effort of the city’s main street, and a community center-like space called Soil. The breadth and amount of art that you can see in Naoshima in such a unique setting is an amazing experience and great for tourism; however I’m not sure what the living, functioning community there is like so can’t actually say it's my favorite in the sense of place or culture. There are smaller individual private museums in Japan that I’ve been to which I think would be an amazing fit for West Marin. The taste of the owner, the story of how it comes together, and scale are very important for actually realizing the potential of the location and the work that is being shown.

SA: We always end on a series of question we ask everyone. How do you recharge on a day off?

MH: Any time spent in the mountains or ocean will do.

SA: Tell us some Instagram accounts of local makers whom we should follow.

MH: Yvonne Mouser, Charles de Lisle, sisters.ceramics, Tung Chiang, Britton Cailouette, David Maisel, Fibershed

SA: Your favorite local areas in nature?

MH: The “proper” nature spots I’d prefer not to broadcast to the world, but I can say I like to think “built environments” are just as much a part of nature as truly wild ones. I like the in-between spots where they feel very natural yet you’re constantly reminded that they’ve been or are being heavily intervened on by humans. The Marinship neighborhood is kind of like this: it can feel like a natural waterfront oasis if you come from the city, but at the same time it’s dotted with industrial workshops and shipyards and urban infrastructure for people to live and work. One minute a crab will infiltrate my studio and a seal will swim up to the dock’s edge, and the next you can hear cranes lifting boats out of the water and welding and workers having lunch outside.

SA: Finally, favorite places to eat or shop in Northern California?

MH: I’m certain that the new restaurant Osito and its accompanying bar Lillian in the Mission is going to be a go-to once they’re open. Also: The Little Wing Farm Stand in Point Reyes; Heath Ceramics; Drivers Market.

Photos by Ekaterina Izmestieva