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No Rest for the Gehry
United Kingdom Architecture News - Apr 18, 2014 - 14:06 2048 views
With several large projects about to open and others in the pipeline—such as housing at London's Battersea Power Station site—Frank Gehry has his hands full.
Viñoly’s role in the mixed-use project was reduced from architect to master planner, the developer asked Gehry and Norman Foster to design buildings for its 42 acres.)
But in unveiling his titanium towers for Battersea, Gehry “walked straight into a raging debate about the capital’s affordable-housing crisis,” according to the Guardian. Housing advocates attacked him for not including a single affordable unit among his 700 condos. Gehry responded that he had nothing to do with the number or location of affordable units (a formula worked out by the developer and the local governing council).
Meanwhile, it’s been a decade since Gehry was chosen to design a performing-arts center at the World Trade Center site, on a plot now occupied by a temporary commuter station. In February, The New York Timesreported that the center’s new management team was considering reducing the size of the project and might scrap Gehry’s plan entirely. Damning with faint praise, Maggie Boepple, the newly installed president of the center, said that Gehry is “excellent at models. We love his model.” But, she added, “so many mistakes are made when genius architects design a building” before the program is in place. Gehry told the Times he had received nothing but “radio silence” from the center’s executives. Still, there may yet be a reconciliation. At press time, a spokesman for the center said the organization was negotiating with Gehry Partners.
Meanwhile, on April 3, the National Capital Planning Commission gave a thumbs-down to Gehry’s plan for the Eisenhower Memorial. The commis?sioners voted 7–3 to send Gehry back to the drawing board to address the size and position of the stainless-steel tapestries that are the focal point of his design. The commission, whose approval is required before the project can proceed, isn’t saying no to Gehry—just keeping him on a short leash; it asked him to return every two months, starting in June, “to provide updates on the design modifications.” As if the architect has nothing else to do.
> via Architectural Record