New movie coming soon Sketches of Frank Gehry

[mike]

New movie coming soon Sketches of Frank Gehry -documentry

[JimM]

New movie coming soon Sketches of Frank Gehry -documentry

Who cares?

[allwrightythen1]

Boy Jim, you're surly.

[JimM]

Boy Jim, you're surly.

I guess that must have sounded surly. Sorry, that was just the first thought that came into my mind, and I meant it. Can it stop being about me, now? What are your thoughts on Gehry, and what does he have to do with FLLW anyway??

[Mark Hertzberg]

Jonathan Lipman makes this analogy in my forthcoming book about Wright's Hardy House : the Hardy House was as out of place in the neighborhood south of downtown, Racine when it was completed in 1906, as a Frank Gehry-designed house would be in the same spot, today.



Mark Hertzberg

[Richard]

OK, I'll bite.



Certainly Wright and probably Gehry were the most avant garde architects of their times. For me, the comparison stops there. Although I do like the band shell at Millenium Park in Chicago as a huge ornament and performance venue, I don't really care for his work. Will the term "gaudy" be repalced with "Gehry" in the future? I love abstract art, but abstract architecture??? I must admit, other than the band shell, I have not experienced the inside of one of his buildings so I can't comment on his interiors. To me, the exteriors look like they were left in the oven too long and melted out of shape. Even Gaudi employed some sense of rhythm and order. However, on some level I do like the imagery but not as architecture.



The story is that as a young boy in Montreal, Gerhy went into his granmother's bathroom and saw a cod swimming in her tub which was being kept fresh for Gifilte fish which is an East European dish. He claims that the undulating body of the fish had a lasting impression on him and his work. To bad he didn't show up when his grandmother was having her floor boards repalced. A bit more rectilinearity may have done him good.

[pharding]

In my opinion, Frank Gehry is way overrated. I have been in a number of his buildings and that of world class architects of our generation and the preceding generation. Frank Gehry has a aesthetic formula that is applied to every project irregardless of the program or context. He does the same thing over and over. In my opinion architects that design buildings that are tailored to the program and context are much better. Some architects that merit recognition for producing great buildings would include FLW, Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, Mitchell Giurgola, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Cutler Anderson, Tod Williams Billie Tsien, Richard Rogers, Stephn Holl, and Glenn Murcutt. Frank Gehry is not in their league.

[mike]

First off I thought you might like to know of this upcoming movie. It will only show in artsy theaters not your local 20 screen mega-plex.

You could go see MI-3 or X-Men the next time you go to a show.



I won

[Richard]

By the way Mike, thanks for your original post. It will be interesting to have a closer look at Gehry's work as it was to see "My Architect" which was a very good film. I agree that fun and whimsy help generate much great art. However, Gehry's work spawns similar debates as did the debates of the times over impressionism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, . . . For me, it boils down to order versus disorder. I have a difficult time reconciling the apparent (doesn't he generate this stuff with the aid of programs?) disorder of Gehry's work and seeing it in context along with other buildings. The imagery is compelling but it stops there. Is it a gimmic, has his work created a school of architecture...? Time will tell.



Oh yeah, on further review, I think it was a carp and not a cod. Sorry for the confusion.

[Richard]

Article in today's NYTimes art section on name architects in Miami and their current projects. Gehry is doing a performance center. He is quoted as saying that "it won't be a Bilbao ... and there will be rectilinearity..." He shouldn't just read the posts here; he ought to weigh in on occassion...

[Roderick Grant]

Gehry is the most overrated architect since Michael Graves. Without "Control-Alt-Delete" he would be lost.

[Richard]

Graves and Target are crying all the way to the bank... Word on the street is that Gehry is about to ink a deal with Walmart. He has already started to redesign the companies brand of hoses, swimming pools, basket balls, volleyballs, plates, pots, and anything which has a curve an elipse or is round. They are keeping him away from the straight stuff. Also. the stainless steel volleyballs make a tremendous clang when they hit the ground so they have relieved him from choosing materials or color.

--Sorry, couldn't resist.

[EJ]

I like Gehry and Graves. They are originals in a field full of crap. I like "different" than the rest of the bland white bread architecture you see all the time, even of its different for different's sake. Not exactly form equals function, but I enjoy it nonetheless.