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November 12, 2007
FRANK LLOYD WRONG
CRACKS FINALLY APPEAR IN THE FAD OF GEHRY
NY Post
By Kyle Smith
When there are problems with Frank Gehry's buildings, the startchitect's response is to blame the victim. MIT is the latest of several high-profile projects that display a sincere lack of common sense — will Brooklyn be next?
In a lawsuit first reported by the Boston Globe last week, MIT alleged that the three-year-old Stata Center, one of Gehry's trademark designs from the Four Car Pileup school of architecture, is already suffering from cracks in its amphitheater because of poor drainage, as well as widespread leaks that have been there since virtually the day the building opened. In winter, outdoor mini-avalanching turns entrances into hard hat zones.
...Professors at the MIT building - including Noam Chomsky - complain that they can't put in bookcases (the walls are tilted) and they're living in a zoo because of the open plan's lack of privacy (actually, it's more like living in a petri dish - there's mold growing on the outside). People with IQs that exceed Queen Latifah's weight have complained that they get lost in the maze-like internal layout. One of the conference rooms stuck into the roof is so bizarrely shaped that a third or more of all visitors - including Gehry himself - suffer dizzy spells in it.
One of Gehry's most praised creations had to be torn up because its floor was too slippery for women in heels. Who could have expected fashionable women to congregate in such a space - the Conde Nast Cafeteria here in Midtown?
...
Gehry is diluting his cool factor so quickly - now he's designing jewelry, wristwatches and the Wyborowa Vodka bottle - that he seems determined to become the Pierre Cardin of design, and once his stuff is everywhere, as it soon will be, future generations will look at his jumbly faddish structures the way we look at shoulder pads or hoop skirts. When he builds the Ground Zero arts center and the new home of the Brooklyn Nets, will he embarrass us the way he has so many others?
Posted by lumi at November 12, 2007 6:22 AM