Experience Music project, Seattle
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Frank Gehry's career seems to be hitting its stride.
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At 82, he is still at the center of some of the world's most interesting and acclaimed projects. Among his projects that have been built or publicized since this blog's previous Gehry post are the
IAC HQ in New York (a very nice website from the link, by the way,)
8 Spruce St., also New York and the Cleveland Clinic
Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.
8 Spruce St., NY
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Some people carp about Gehry's work. Anything done publicly is open to criticism, and some of it's usually valid, at least by some criteria. At the same time, Gehry is one of the most truly ground-breaking architects in history, and in my opinion his work holds lessons for anyone who would design buildings. It isn't necessary to design something visually similar in order to obtain the lessons and put them to practice. They can be useful in abstract ways as well as literal ones.
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One of the pet criticisms goes to the "arbitrary" nature of his building forms, pointing out that they may be unrelated to function. This is a cheap shot, because any building that uses form in a way that departs from mere functional accommodation would be vulnerable, and the world would be a much duller place without art. Architecture has been used as a means of expression in addition to, or even exclusive of, functionality throughout its existence. Gehry has referred to Alvar Aalto as an influence, and Aalto's work followed a similar path from concept to construction, celebrating the "arbitrary" expression of form and material, and the physical detailing necessary to bridge the possible distinction between art and architecture.
Cleveland Clinic, Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Las Vegas
Related criticism can be that "it's impractical." Yes, it's always impractical to do something that exceeds functional necessity. Every age since the dawn of classical Greece has tried to find new and valid ways to express itself in its built environment.
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In the hands of less inspired, less capable hands than Gehry's, buildings of the ambition and general character associated with his work can be, and often are, failures. There is a sufficient appetite for distinction in architecture that much avant-garde work is commissioned that fails to meet even reasonable principles of design. Difference for the sake of being different, while not an inherently invalid proposition, can obviously lead to ridiculous and ill-advised work.
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Gehry follows a path of, like Aalto, exhuberant creation and celebration of form, followed by relentless refinement, then a hard-nosed pursuit of structural and weather-resistent physical integrity of the building. I think the refinement stage is the most singular, and most critical, in the making of his architecture. (A look at the design part of the IAC HQ site gives a nice, if greatly abbreviated, glimpse of what this entails.)
