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May 29, 2007
Frank Gehry’s buildings seem to be from another planet
The [UK] Times
An interview with the architect of Atlantic Yards:
Gehry is no mere architect; he is a “starchitect”, and the object of adulation by culture junkies across the world – including, it turns out, the veteran Out of Africa film-maker Sydney Pollack, who has just released an 84-minute documentary entitled Sketches of Frank Gehry (see panel, right). The film is the closest that anyone is ever likely to get to the genre of architecture-porn. There they are, Gehry’s curvy super-models, spread-eagled and pouting in various exotic locations across the globe.
I meet Gehry at his surprisingly sane-looking office in Marina del Ray, Los Angeles, where 180 of his understudies design everything from entire New York zip codes to vodka bottles, via home lighting and Tiffany jewellery. Gehry, the Willy Wonka of this particular chocolate factory, greets me shiftily in a black T-shirt and blue jeans.
...
As for the future, Gehry has won critical praise for Inter-Active Corp’s ghostly HQ in Manhattan and is working on two massive urban renewal projects: Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Grand Avenue in LA. He is building a £290 million seafront development in Hove, East Sussex.
And what architecture-porn would be complete without a designgasm:
“I’ll show you my lights!” he exclaims, now throwing the gently throbbing object from one hand to the other.
Finally he plops it on the floor and shrugs, still grinning, as if to say – can you f*ing believe I designed that, eh?
Posted by lumi at May 29, 2007 7:23 AM