First, a story that sounds like a fable.
When he was 7, Fu-Tung Cheng's mother led him and his four older brothers
to a bank along the Los Angeles River. Each boy carried an empty rice
sack. Fu-Tung led the way with a flashlight.
They filled the sacks with sand. Later, they went to Redondo Beach and
gathered pebbles. They returned to their farmhouse in Van Nuys. And their
mother mixed a batch of concrete. Poured the family driveway. It was a
recipe of rare ambition with pie-crust results.
Thus Fu-Tung's fate was set in concrete.
Today, Fu-Tung Cheng is a leading, nearly exalted Bay Area designer, a
frequent hero of glossy home and garden magazines, a seer whose clean
kitchens, austere baths and seamless remodels speak of taste, of
restraint, of extraordinary simplicity.
Cheng, a former painter, a tai chi master who once studied Buddhism in
Japan, approaches space as though guided by the principles of the tea
ceremony.
His elements are sky, water, wind - and concrete. Particularly concrete.
Not the rocky rubble of street curbs or cinder blocks or freeway pillars.
No, his use of concrete is more fluid, protean, poured into forms to make
sinks, vessels, countertops, patios, fireplace hearths, water treatments,
the receptive medium typically stained, etched, stamped or embedded with
precious stones or fossils.
The results are organic. And sculptural.
Forgoing a chisel for a trowel, Cheng is a kind of Renaissance sculptor
who has made lowly concrete his Carrara marble.
"We tend to think of concrete as something cold and abrasive," he
postulates. "But good design transforms it. Good design makes the material
compelling and warm - it shows us possibility."
Cheng Design occupies a grim storefront next door to a tattoo parlor on
San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley. He sits at a conference table made of
concrete, its surface embedded with transmission gaskets.
He pours a visitor a cup of green tea.
Fu-Tung Cheng is 58 years old. He is tall, 5-foot-11, thin, with stylish
clothes, a professorial men, black hair laced with silver. His
personality is an agreeable feng-shui arrangement of charm, humor,
thoughtfulness and artful self-promotion.
He is endlessly digressive. A conversation about storage easily leads into
a reflection on Lao-tze, the dialectic of consumption and resources,
tapping the energy force "qi," the use of "green" materials.
Cheng has been the accommodating subject of numerous magazine spreads. As
though he were ushering in some new epoch, a recent profile on Cheng in
the Los Angeles Times was titled "The Post-Granite Age." He laughs at such
presumption. "I have nothing against granite," he assures. "I think it's a
wonderful material."
Still, it's not concrete. He has also been dubbed, in various renditions,
the "King of Concrete," a millstone of a crown that he finds cumbersome.
In 2002, Cheng published his influential "Concrete Countertops" (Taunton
Press; $29.95; 208 pages), which launched a small counter revolution in
the design industry. Guys who were used to pouring driveways were now
trying their hands at forming curvaceous lavatories, in celadon colors,
with starfish impregnations.
Now Cheng (with Eric Olsen) has expanded on those seminal concrete
principles with the recent release of "Concrete at Home" (Taunton Press;
$32; 224 pages). Here, following the examples of such luminaries as Frank
Lloyd Wright and Bernard Maybeck, he shows how concrete can be used
imaginatively in floors, walls, columns, patios and mantelpieces.
Ostensibly a do-it-yourself book with advisories and design tips, the
sensible reader probably will not try this at home. Is there anything more
harrowing than a cement truck ready to disgorge 4 cubic yards of fresh
concrete at your doorstep?
Best let the professionals do the job.
Cheng agrees. "I'm just trying to expand on the possibilities of
concrete," he says. "So the homeowner will be informed. So they can see
just how creative concrete can be."
In the right hands, concrete is a wonderful, malleable material. But it
also has character flaws. A recent issue of Consumer Reports, in rating
countertop options (marble, Corian, granite, etc.) ranks concrete highest
for its "customization." But it's near the bottom for its porosity,
chipping and staining.
Cheng counters that he has developed new products that better seal and
polish the material, offsetting many of its liabilities. (For more
information on Fu-Tung Cheng, his design services, product lines and
philosophy: www.chengdesign.com.)
Cheng may be a darling of Bay Area design. But in the Sacramento area,
where granite is king and houses often resemble ersatz
Tuscan-Tudor-Versailles villas on steroids, there are gray reservations.
Leading local designers such as Bruce Benning, Mary Ann Downey and Ernie
Sanchez report that they seldom use concrete.
"Maybe my clients are more conservative," says Downey. "People just don't
want maintenance issues. And with concrete, there are just too many ifs,
ands and buts."
Adds Benning: "The truth is, when it comes to countertops, I would go with
honed stone. God made it, not man. Pricewise, it's comparable." (Depending
on your contractor and intricacy of design, concrete can run from $55 to
$100 a square foot.)
Though Benning finds fault with concrete, his praise for Cheng is lavish,
unequivocal. "He is a fabulous designer," says Benning. "Meticulous
detail. Absolutely top-notch."
One couple in the Sacramento area summoned the courage to become willing
devotees of Fu-Tung Cheng.
Meet John and Polly Marion. She is 71; he is 83. Both are artists, as bold
and lively as can be. The two are retired schoolteachers from Palo Alto.
Seven years ago, they moved into an apartment in the University Retirement
Center in Davis. As is the case with these complexes, their unit was
beige, bland, generic.
But not for long. Seeing Cheng's work in Sunset magazine, the couple
contacted his firm. And essentially gave Cheng carte blanche to gut and
recast their entire living space with spectacular results.
"It's like living in a New York loft," says Polly Marion. "We wanted our
surroundings to be enjoyable for the rest of our lives. Fu-Tung developed
our trust. He worked with us. And a whole new life has opened up for us in
Davis."
That's one end of the concrete spectrum.
Now meet Barry Schuler, 52, former chief executive officer of AOL, whose
net wealth in 1999 was estimated by Forbes magazine to be $750 million.
Recently, Schuler built a showplace home in a small vineyard on 35 acres
in Napa Valley.
The house was designed by Bainbridge architect Jim Cutler, who has worked
for Bill and Melinda Gates. But Fu-Tung Cheng had sole custody of the
kitchen. The spectacular concrete and stainless-steel kitchen is featured
on the cover of "Concrete at Home."
Schuler calls Cheng "the best architect-designer I have ever worked with.
He is extraordinarily talented, with great design language." And the
kitchen? "It's the absolute center of my house," he says. "We entertain a
lot, so people gather there to watch me cook. I think of it as a piece of
sculpture."
Cheng himself lives much more modestly and jokes that Schuler has a
potting shed that's bigger than his house. Despite his own success, he
lives happily in a 1,300- square-foot home in Albany, which he bought 33
years ago for $16,500. At the time, the house was ramshackle; some rooms
didn't have floors.
He fixed it up using salvaged materials and knowhow he acquired by trial
and error. It's worth noting that Cheng is not a licensed architect or
even a designer by training. He is a former painter who has a master's in
fine arts from USC.
Nonetheless, the Cheng home, which he shares with his schoolteacher wife,
Lila Luk, and their 6-year-old daughter, An-Ya, remains the firm's most
convincing prototype, both innovative and liveable.
Today, Cheng is moving into other realms. He has designed a line of oven
hoods for Zephyr. He has a product he markets called Geocrete. He conducts
workshops for contractors. And, a blissful retreat, he is part owner of a
tea shop called Teance on Solano Avenue in Albany.
But Cheng is not content to be just the reigning King of Countertops. His
firm (a staff of nine, including designers and architects) is moving into
house design. He has already designed six homes, one of which was
applauded in Architectural Record.
Cheng has traveled some distance in his life's pilgrimage, from a small
boy with a rice sack on his back to this designer of acclaimed space.
"Ultimately, I think, when all is said and done, when you have aspired and
succeeded to some degree, I think you go to art to find your humanity," he
says. "I want to create a sense of community. I want to do something that
wasn't done before. To create something that brings us a sense of joy."
