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December 14, 2006
Against Gehry, Against Leviathan (part 1)
Picketing Henry Ford
Many critics who have been supporters of Frank Gehry's work are singing another tune about Atlantic Yards. Blogger Stuart Schrader examines one critic who is standing by his man:
The votes are in, and the loser is…Frank Gehry. Everywhere I look lately, Gehry is on the receiving end of a critical hurtin’. Reliable and even-keeled critics, previous fans of his work, like Paul Goldberger and Martin Filler, have voiced skepticism about the Atlantic Yards (AY) project. Filler’s criticism impressed me because his past enthusiasm for Gehry struck me as unwarranted and unpersuasive. But his recent critique—nay, excoriation—of the AY project should have Gehry crying “Uncle!” Also, I am grateful to Filler for informing us of the quid pro quo between Gehry and Ratner after The New York Times Company and Ratner hired Renzo Piano to design the new Times tower. With the completion of the ICA building, Gehry’s first work in Manhattan, we may be seeing more negative reception, such as James Gardner’s in that progressive rag The New York Sun. At this point, other than Nicolai Ouroussoff of The New York Times (whose tune, I expect, will change), Jonathan Liu, writing for N+1, seems to be the only serious critic left in the ignominious position of defending Gehry. This two-part post will take a closer look at Liu’s argument with the intent of elucidating the larger theme of the way the Atlantic Yards project and Gehry’s architecture fits into our present neoliberal, hypercapitalist society of the spectacle. I single out Liu not because I have some beef with him—I’ve never actually read him before—but because his criticism articulates quite well the beliefs of other supporters of the AY project.
Posted by lumi at December 14, 2006 10:20 PM