Sketches Of Frank Gehry

[hockley91]

Wow! They don't have anything like that down here! This is incredibly new!

 

Where have I been all these years? What have I been reading!

 

LOL :-)

[Christopher Nichols]

The difference between Duchamp's "Fountain" and Gehry's designs is that I don't think Gehry is trying to put one over on us all like Duchamp was doing. I think that would be an unfair statement. Is he in a rut? Is he resting on his laurels? Wasn't Meier and several other famous architects guilty of that? Does that make them bad architects or just boring and predictable? How many architects out there are reproducing their own work?

 

Exactly... you make the argument for me. I don't think he is trying to put one over on us. I don't think he is good enough for that. Is he simply not smart enough to put more thought into his design? I think his past would proove that wrong. Resting on his laurels? Maybe... I call that lazy. And with the sizes of the budgets that he is given, I think it is irresponsible. But, after all, he is 77 years old, and maybe I should give him a break already. There is little chance that I will really care about anything at that age.

[jtiscareno]

Man Chris you really dont like Gehry, I to the contrary love the work he does and I think his genius if one wants to apply that to him is in the fact that he with the Bilbao Museum broke the box that FLW wanted to break a century earlier. Yes one can "like or not like" his stuff (and "like" actually should not be in an open architecture discussion, if its personal opinion then it is diffrent but judging architecture one like" does not fly at all), or yes he might be loosing his edge, but after Bilbao the whole computer, blob, post blob architecture movement finally arrived to center stage.

 

And I think history would judge him as one of the key figures in architecture becuase of that, just like after Corbu and after FLW those guys sparked a whole new generation of architects that could think and design and propose something "different", just look at the boom Zaha or Morphosis or Libeskind have had recently, the public does not think their stuff is outrages or impossible, and I think that it is possible after Gehry stuff got built.

 

Morphosis or Moss stuff is to me also loosing its edge, Zaha is getting there and a new generation of digital architects are coming to the front like FOA, ShOP, etc, blobs have morphed into folds, etc.

 

What I sometimes are architects that over talk the theory talk, just like tschumi (where is he now?) or Koolhas, Gehry would be the first to say that he does not have his own "theory" and I would be disapointed if he pretends to have one in his new movie.

 

IMHO I think the current architect of architects are people like Renzo Piano, H&M, Murcutt, and many more known or unknown architects that take into consideration everything before they actually start designing, historic time, site, enviroment, sun, weahter, context, impact, concept, client, etc.

 

But back to Gehry, I love that he is still doing what he is good at, and that the public in general at least are a bit intrested in architecture, lets not forget that architecture is not to be put in a pedestal, we are born, live and die in it, so it should be out in the open and have it right place in soceity as a whole.

[Limbus]

I would agree with you in the sense that having to overcome those issues is part of the dues you pay on your way to being a great architect. Frank did that with cool design and cheap materials back in the 80s. He paid his dues. Once you are given the carte blanche, as you put it, then you are responsible to create something interesting... I swear he actually put 10 times more thought in this:

 

I think the biggest problem with gehry is the success of the guggenheim museum in bilbao. It was so successfull that everbody wants one now. He is like a slave to his success. Same thing happend to Liebeskind.

But I also think that Gehry is still able to design new and interesting architecture. One example is the DG Bank in Berlin. It is located at the Pariser Platz and any architect building there has to obey to very strickt design rules. Gehry found a very clever way to use these designrules to his advantage while all the other big architects put up boring building on the Pariser Platz. You can look at it here:

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/gehry/dg_bank/

 

Florian

[erevan]

I agree with the statement that Gehry is an overrated artist.

 

To my opinion: He makes innofensive architecture. Great expensive envelopes for traditional spaces and plan layouts. Too much energy expended in form, and visual space, but no innovation in program. His buildings change the city by money and mass impact, rather than to help to build a citizen identity.

 

And I think I prefer the first, postmodern Gehry...

[erevan]

And Gehry wasn't the firdt to break the box.

 

It was done by german architects 50 years before (Hans Scharoun, Erich Mendelsohn). And by Le Corbusier in his late work. Not to mention gothic cathedrals.

[alias_marks]

I know this thread has been dead for a while but thought this might stir things up a bit

 

Architect Gehry sued by MIT

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071106/ap_on_re_us/mit_suit_architect

[AJLynn]

how does mold grow on a brick exterior?