Frank Gehry has a habit of scribbling his design ideas on scraps of paper, office whiteboards and even his phone. They're loose, untidy doodles, far from the linear, ordered plan you might expect from an architect. And yet, when his curvy, chaotic structures materialize, they resemble that scribble more closely than what seems physically (and structurally) possible.
Facts:
•Pritzker Prize for Architecture, 1989 Laureate
• Has designed products outside architecture : the Wyborovka Vodka bottle, a wristwatch for Fossil, jewelry for Tiffany & Co., and the World Cup of Hockey trophy.
•First garnered major critical recognition for designing his own Santa Monica house using plywood and other inexpensive materials as dramatic expressive elements.
Quote: Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.
Attended: He took his first architecture class at Los Angeles City College and then attended University of Southern California (graduated 1954).
Known For: Deconstructivism — manipulation of a structure's surface to create controlled chaos.
Representative Pieces Shown Above: (left to right)
1) The Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic, 1995
2) DZ Bank Building in Berlin, Germany, 2000
3) Venice Beach House, Los Angeles, California, 1986
4) Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 1997
5) Richard B. Fischer Center for the Performing Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, 2003
Gehry on the web:
• Academy of Achievement
•Wikipedia
•Gehry Partners, LLP
•List of Frank Gehry buildings
(Images: 1. Flckr member Christine Zenino, licensed under Creative Commons. 2. Flicr member Erwin Brevis, licensed under Creative Commons. 3.Flicr member IK's World Trip, licensed under Creative Commons. 4.Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 5.the Fischer Center at Bard College)
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and my favorite (cause I worked there for two years when it opened)
6) Walt Disney Concert Hall
http://www.usalosangeles.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/walt-disney-concert-hall-los-angeles2.jpg
Would've been nice if you'd mentioned that the "Dancing House" was designed by Vlado Milunić, in cooperation with Gehry.
Meh; just because you can build something, doesn't mean you should. This is one of many geniuses that I just don't "get." I understand "more is more," but think architecture should be inspirational and aspirational, not just showy! But, that's just me. I also realize that it takes a village to run an asylum...
We've got one of his buildings in my city-- it's part of the local college. It's impractical & unusable inside (impossible to traverse the building without changing floors twice), and actively a hazard on the outside (in the winter, the goofy copper sheathed roof launches sheets of ice at high velocity onto innocent pedestrians below). But hey-- we got us a gen-u-wine Gehry! This means we're a real city now, right??
Meh.
@THATKRIS
haha, so true. love his designs but so impractical and flawed. The Disney concert Hall leaks like a motha during the rainy season. Good thing it doesn't rain a whole lot in L.A. And I felt sorry for the tenants in the building across from it. When the sun hit it it reflected so much heat back to it that they needed to sandblast the panels to reduce the glare.
Sure, you can say his designs look "cool". What people don't realize is how wasteful and costly his designs are. There is a reason his designs are "innovative" and "unique" - because no one in their right mind or with a conscience would create such excessive monstrosities. I watched in dismay and disgust at the construction of his Walt Disney Concert Hall from my office window here in downtown LA. It sat for 3-4 years as an empty lot because they ran out of money before a single beam of the Hall was constructed. The city and County of LA had already blown too much money on it so they had to ask around (again!) for more private money to finish. It eventually came in costing almost $300 million and about $174 million over-budget, and this figure does NOT include the original extras for such design and construction, a re-design, and does not include the unanticipated extra maintenance and repairs needed for water leakage, drainage, and fixing the reflection, heat and light problems encountered. On a sunny day I could get a sunburn standing no more than 5 minutes in front of it. I'm serious. And one pair of sunglasses is not enough. One of the most rudimentary elements of architectural design is to plan and design for heat and light gain, especially in a dense urban environment, and they couldn't even get THAT right. If you lived in an apartment to the west or south of Disney Hall, your AC bills tripled due to the heat gain. Drivers were temporarily blinded, especially going by the concave sections which were basically parabolic mirrors. Any 10 year old who's used a magnifying glass and/or handheld mirror can figure this out. It was funny watching the tourists trying to find a good spot to snap a photo of the bldg, walking with one arm over their face to prevent from being temporarily blinded. To alleviate this problem Gehry's associates had to come back and intentionally dull the surfaces. Embarassing.
Gehry's modus operandi is to disallow intervention to his design from politicians, businessmen and economists. He wants to let the "artist" handle everything. Though I understand the advantages to let him run the show, he certainly needs someone to bring him back to reality.
To put the cost into perspective, other similar-sized concert halls cost about 5-20% of this one. To put it another way, my volunteer group can build a 3-room schoolhouse in a 3rd world country for $12,000 (let's use $15,000 to say we did it with all paid labor). WITH JUST THE COST OF THE BUDGET OVERRUNS ON THIS PROJECT, we can build 11,600 of those schools, EACH with ability to educate 100 students. I think you understand why I am disgusted.
I've been to his EMP in Seattle, and I've been to the Disney Hall to see a few concerts, and it is indeed a great venue. But I won't respect or commend Gehry until I see him do something like design and complete the 50,000 schools for that money instead of one showy, bloated, wasteful, dumb, and - in my opinion - FUGLY building.
"Just because you can build something; doesn't mean you should."
I agree with Quiltmaster. Although some of Gehry's buildings are visually interesting - on their own - they don't always jive together with their surroundings. The Guggenheim Museum in Spain (shown above) looks impressive, at least from this angle, because there is plenty of space around it.
What McMonkeyman wrote about the Disney Hall is very interesting (thanks, by the way, for such informative comments).
I don't know if you ever knew about the intended library building in Prague that was supposed to look like an octopus. (some pictures here: http://www.zvedavec.org/komentare/2007/04/1985-nova-budova-narodni-knihovny-chobotnice-hlen-nebo-letenske-lejno.htm ). Because you can build something, doesn't mean you should. Indeed.
Actually, in Gehry's case it may be "Just because you WANT to build something doesn't mean you CAN". It sounds like he hasn't successfully managed to build very many usable structures, and certainly not within practical/(economically) sustainable limits. (I won't even touch the environmental issue. Nor will he.)
Can you tell I'm not a fan?
Sorry,@EricAuerbach.
My only experience with a Ghery building was visiting the Art Gallery of Ontario earlier this year. The exterior was nice, but the interior was simply breathtaking. We had no issues navigating our way through the museum--it seemed very practical.
I live in Seattle, and the EMP has mixed reviews. Twelve years after completion, it's still being nominated as the biggest eyesore in the city (currently with the 2nd highest votes).
It's ... um ... strange.
And while I like a lot of strange, a lot of these buildings are just eyesores to me. Some of them are - to me - absolutely incredible. But the rest I'd avoid. Count me in the "I'm not cool enough for him" category.