Frank Gehry to Design a Building in Sydney

I feel sorry for Sydney.

Barf

“You've got to bumble forward into the unknown.”

Frank Gehry

Yay another landscape for him to shit on.

He should meet my customers.

I like Frank. He does good things.

I liked the Aussie Herbal Essence shampoo commercial more than the story

Has he come up with anything new and original in awhile?

Compared to what?

That's practically all he does.

His buildings all look the same; just scaled down and up versions of themselves. The Walt Disney Concert Hall looks like Seattle's Music Project which looks like Bilbao's Guggenheim which looks like his new Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute in LV.

Piano and Foster produce much better work (sometimes)

There are some obvious consistencies like arbitrary spatial masses and "organic" forms, but there is much more complexity and variation in his design than a reliance on a single signature volumetric trick would allow. His buildings are far smarter and less self indulgent than they are cited as. He's used almost every category of material available. He's dealt with almost every program type. He's used many different formal languages. He's pioneered structural design innovations in at least major categories (site cast concrete, laminate timber forming, and computer aided steel space-frame strength simulation) as well as building skin design in glass and metals. He's revolutionized the computer design with the collaboration on CATIA software. He's innovated a unique work process between complex hand models and computer models that no other architects had found a way to do yet. He's even revived or elevated the notoriety of entire cities with his buildings. The convenient knock on him is that his buildings have leaking roofs, or they come in over budget, or they waste materials. But the truth is that nobody asks him to design a building for any of those reasons. His clients are almost universally pleased with what he gives them and he's done it by maintaining a consistent purpose of making exciting, comforting architecture that people take simple pleasure from. He's extremely well respected in the profession, even if some people acknowledge it reluctantly or have no interest in emulating his process.

I don't understand how people can say all his buildings look the same. I've seen a number of his buildings, and been inside many of them, and they are individually unique. Sure, the design language is similar, but the effect is quite different. Even in photos, I can't understand how someone can think Bilbao looks like WDCH. That said, I don't think they're all successful. The EMP and his downtown LA condo things are pretty terrible. But after walking in and around WDCH, I'm convinced he is an inspired designer. --Andre

Nonsense. I have only a passing interest in modern architecture and can see with my own eyes how this is not true. What I have watched with some interest/amusement is how he has struggled/failed/succeeded to make the internal workings of his structures reflect and organically tie in to the external.