It’s a crappy picture, but it’s the Experience Music Project! There are bound to be better pictures out there.
Such as this. God, I love Google!
Since the State Center is still under construction, I can see the supporting pillars. It does seem to be well-braced. And, despite the weird external angles, most of the supporting members are akmost drearily vertical and horizontal, with the occasional weird-angled strut to throw you off. It’s only when the buildings are “clothed” with their brick and steel exteriors that they look as if they’re all odd angles. So I trust them. I just don’t like them.
Bad New Baboon – Yeah, I’m aware of the parallels with early shows of Modern Art, which is why I prefaced this with the note that it might make me sound like a Philistine. Nevertheless, although I like the works that were displayed at those shows, I still hate the Gehry buildings. It’s a matter of taste.And, I think, acclimation. I was brought up on Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, and never thought it was weird. In much the same way, every new building or sculpture at MIT has been greeted with derision by the students there at the time, but accepted as “normal” by successive genberations of students who first encounterede it as part of the campus scene. When Louise Nevelson’s sculpture “Transparent Horizon” showed up between the East Campus Parallels (dormitories), student retaliated by burying the 15-foot abstract sculpture in snow. And by pelting it with paint-filled ballons, which ameliorated its oppressive flat black color. Nowadays, nobody even takes any notice.
I must be getting old; all those buildings look to me like they are falling down or broken; I felt physically sick looking at them.
My problem with Gehry isn’t his designs, which I find interesting, it’s that he’s hardened too much into a single style. I look at this and see about fifteen other commissions of his, which to me implies that he (well, his staff, actually) is spending too much time at the copy machine.
It’s a fine line. An institution hires an architect with full knowledge of what “look” they’re going to get - but it can become quite derivative, as I think this one is.
But I do prefer buildings to call attention to themselves. I am something of an anti-preservationist: I believe very few buildings really deserve to be preserved, and that much architecture since 1975 has been historicist bunkum. Contextualism particularly appalls me, as it usually produces two things: (a) a pastiche of mediocrity (usually, it’s far too expensive to actually continue the historical style, so what you get is a pale shadow), and (b) an intellectual vacuum, as it encourages a sort of sanitized, Williamsburged/Merchant-Ivoried view of history. The recent arrival of a truly contemporary aesthetic, which Gehry himself helped usher in, is a welcome relief.
I’m just afraid that Gehry’s work is starting to veer into self-parody.
I don’t think Gehry is copying previous designs, rather repeating the same process of design in each instance to see how the results vary.
I believe his approach, whilst not massively varied, is at least focused and follows a strong development process to arrive at the final design.
It is by far better than most of the eclectic tripe forwarded by other firms. (Mine included, unfortunately).
Also, no one seems to mind when Richard Meier churns out ‘identical’ white buildings, using the same materials and spec. with each job, regardless of their use- domestic, retail, museum etc… Why? Because they are at least solid & understandable in form.