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September 9, 2008
Critic Rybczynski: Gehry is challenged to adapt style to large project
Atlantic Yards Report
The article's two years old, but it only surfaced recently in full text, so it's worth considering architecture critic Witold Rybczynski's cautions about using starchitects like Frank Gehry--especially since, as Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn reminded us yesterday, the latest version of Forest City Ratner's plans show only buildings in Phase 1. (I reported in May how the latest renderings were significantly less ambitious than their predecessors.)
The article, headlined Architectural Branding, was first published in Fall 2006 issue of the Wharton Real Estate Review, excerpted in Slate, and republished in the Summer 2008 issue of Appraisal Institute's Appraisal Journal, Summer 2008.
[article link from customhomeonline.com]
Regarding Gehry, he writes:
Frank Gehry has perhaps the strongest architectural franchise in the world today. Although he has built a number of small commercial projects in Prague, Berlin, and Boston, he is chiefly known for his cultural monuments, notably the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. The Gehry brand is unmistakable: whimsical, sculptural, quirky buildings that don't look like buildings (and, incidentally, are difficult and expensive to build). It will be a challenge to successfully adapt Gehry's approach to a large commercial development, such as the ones that he is planning for Brooklyn and downtown Los Angeles.
Atlantic Yards would be less a commercial development than a residential one, but it would be a megaproject.
NoLandGrab: Then again, Atlantic Yards, with the challenges of design, scale and technology, is more a commercial development than, say, a single-family home, which is most often associated with residential commissions.
Though Rybczynski cautions that "branding" doesn't insure success, Norman Oder notes that, "Gehry also was helpful to developer Forest City Ratner in influencing public opinion about Atlantic Yards, thus tamping down potential opposition and getting some supporters on board."
Posted by lumi at September 9, 2008 4:02 AM