Thursday, November 8, 2007

The Guardian On Gehry:


"Gehry breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings," the suit said, according to the Boston Globe.

Gehry's critics have long accused him of overvaulting ambition, both in terms of assessing the depths of his clients' pockets as well as the technological limitations on turning his visions into reality.

Two of Gehry's earlier university projects have run into difficulties. A 1986 engineering building for the University of California at Irvine has been torn down because it leaked. A building for the management school of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio cost more than double the original estimate.

Critics have been divided since the Stata Centre's completion, with some praising its innovation and others denouncing it as a blight on the landscape.

In 1989, when Gehry was awarded the prestigious Pritzker prize, the citation read: "His sometimes controversial, but always arresting body of work, has been variously described as iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent, but the jury, in making this award, commends this restless spirit that has made his buildings a unique expression of contemporary society and its ambivalent values."


Note the last part...is this who we want desing buildings in this day an age when practicality, safety are paramount and environmental concerns an issue? And when the novelty wears off what are left with? An eyesore. Gehry is nothing but a hustler who's been knighted by the elite to brand globalism - like globalism, it entices you for a moment until you realize behind the dazzle are just greedy people like Bruce Ratner picking your pocket.

Ratner is a dinosaur - stuck in a 1960/1980s megablock mentality, only paying lip service to things like environmental concerns or, more amazingly, security concerns (maybe, like Larry Silverstien he is hoping of for a double windfall) so its not surprising that he's picked an architect that, if this nonsense gets built will be viewed as a laughing stock by the time its finished....problem is the joke's on us since we'll be paying for it.

Ratner is very simply a very greedy, corrupt and rather disgusting man who is concerned about one thing - lining his own pocket - he is willing to use fake community groups, take money from real affordable housing and even go as far as to seize schools from children (see the Brooklyn Tech effort) yet our elite and the New York Times showers praise and calls him one of their own...what does that tell you?

2 comments:

bobbo said...

Grow up.

The KnickerBlogger said...

What does 'growing up' entail? Praising Gehry's 'toon town' architecture? Or Ratner's greed?