During WWII, MIT put up “temporary” buildings on campus that ended up staying there for over half a century. A couple of years ago, they finally tore them down, and they are currently replacing them with the Ray and Maria Stata Center. I walk past these in-process constructions once a week. Call me a philistine, but I hate this Frank Gehry-designed complex. It looks for all the world as if they build a architectural model out of cardboard and Foamcore, then inadvertently left it out in the rain overnight so it got all warped. And then they decided to build it that way, anyhow: http://medg.lcs.mit.edu/people/psz/stata/Default.html
UGH… Looks like a grade-school diorama gone bad. To me, campus buildings need to look classic and scholarly - red brick and ivy and all that. Boring but reliable. Trustworthy. That’s what education is all about…
OK, maybe not, but I still think the buildings look bizarre.
Normally, I hate Gehry’s stuff, but these are very amusing! Looks like the aftermath of the Great San Francisco Earthquake!
(The less often I have to look at certain buildings, the more tolerant I am of the architect’s groovy brainstorms. You tried to put this in MY neighborhood, I’d be circulating petitions and handing out torches.)
I must be more twisted than I thought. I kinda like 'em.
I wouldn’t want my tax dollar to go for their construction because they’re obviously less efficient and will be expensive to build and maintain but if it’s a private institution, go for it. Seeing as how a university should inspire original thought, they seem somewhat appropriate.
I’d also put Weeping Yaupons everywhere for landscaping.
I generally enjoy Gehry’s designs, but I think FairyChatMom’s right about university buildings…boring is better. If I was choosing a new corporate headquarters or wanted the coolest house on the block, though, I’d give him a call…
Although there has been heated discussion as to whether the building should outshow the contents - it the case of Gehrys design for the museum in Bilbao which became the biggest attraction on show, taking away from the exhibits inside. But t would be a very dull world if all buildingsd were designed to be truly and only functional.
Mies said “Less is more” but…
Robert Venturi said "Less is a bore"
I like Gehry (except that thing in Seattle-- the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, I think). The Gugenheim in Bilbao is amazing, and I like these new ones as well. These really have some character- much more interesting than the nouveau Pizza-hut style or the 17th generation Intl. school that are built out of expediency and budget cuts. I think right angles, design-wise, are quite overrated, especially with the building materials that are available now. I think that of ALL places a university might as well have some thought-provoking and creative buildings. We shape our built environment as a microcosmic model of our minds and society-- we are an interesting and complex society right now and our episteme can handle this. You should be happy that you aren’t getting the international school/ po-mo fake stucco pastel shot-crete monstrosities that other campuses are having built.
I KNEW it! I knew it! The minute I saw the pics linked by the OP, I knew this was the same guy that did the Weisman museum on the Twin Cities U of Minnesota campus!
I would have said that these were by Hundertwasser… but I think H’s stuff was more colourful. Given that Gehry is in the running for the new Art Gallery of Ontario addition/renovation, this is good to know about.
As to whether I like them…? mildly, yes. Definetly better than boring. But I wonder how they’ll age.
I like a lot of the Modern concrete stuff from the sixties, partly because you can let them be overgrown with vines. But the post-Modern computer-science building at Waterloo University started to look bad on the outside less than five years after it was opened!
