[City Journal] A Monument to Self-Importance: Architecture as a means of memorializing the architect

I'm not going to bother asking whether you agree with this op-ed or what your thoughts are about it but since this is my field and work is slow will share my thoughts.

I'm about as far from a starchitect can be and be a licensed architect. Most of my work has been the guy who has to figure out how to build the thing that looks like a construction from MC Escher clad in aluminum, how to get it through code and how to make sure it doesn't leak. In other words I'm the guy rolling his eyes at the "artists" during the design meeting.

All of that said, of course designs like that are means of memorializaing the architect and other than the headaches trying to come up with details how to attach that shiny twisty metal cladding I have no problems with it. Following the debate on intellectual property designs that are compelling and unique have value and architects who have built a following have brands as much as successful painters or musicians. You hire a Frank Gehry because you want a Frank Gehry building. Any number of architects including myself could design a functional and practical building. If I was responding to the RFP for the Luo Ruvo Center I would most likely be emphasizing function and cost as I'm guessing there were many other architects who did too. They wanted Frank Gehry not because that is a name they want associated with it. Gehry is likely going to give a very interesting building and one that is distinctively known as Frank Gehry as much as if the hired Danny Elfman to write a musical score for their publicity material.

From an aesthetic standpoint it's certainly free to criticize the design but whether people like it is a matter of taste just as many people don't like Danny Elfman's music. The building is known as a Gehry building and that gives it and the Brain Health institution a lot of catchet. As for as a monument to himself I don't see any problem with that. If people are willing to pay Frank Gehry for a design more power to Frank Gehry and I can only hope that some day people will want to pay me just for my name.

 

Can you explain to me like I'm 5 what the point of that article even is? Even with your response, I don't get it.

 

He’s critiquing the building design.
Saying it stupid.
And thereby asking what isit good for.
And concluding it’s only function must be to memorialize the architect.

 

Right, but what is the reason for concern, is it public money being spent on the building? What are we supposed to debate and discuss in reference to a guy saying a building looks stupid and is a waste?

 

it’s a City Magazine doing a Arts & Culture piece critiquing a building

it’s an art critique

 

Someone needs to have another talk with oneself

 

What the **** is it doing here then lol, more of a hangout topic no? When Fatty posts food critiques the breh has the decency to post them in hangout.

Os is tying this into cancel culture and Dr Suess, it's got to be in there somewhere...

 

btw: author didn’t say it was a waste. That was an editorial guess of yours. “Debating” a work of art, isn’t the right word. Unless by debating, you mean within the realm of critique of a given subject and genre.

 

I'm interested in engaging this with you partner, but I'm not sure if doing so is playing into Os's trap...

 

Maybe Critiquing Patronage of a snooty starchitect allows us to commiserate in mutual bashing of Art Gallery Circuit Elites

or do all D&D threads require opposing arguments

 

I just don't understand why an art piece is being operated by the Cleveland clinic.

Edit - I read google and now understand it.

I think the money would have been better off going to research instead of a fancy pants building.

 

All buildings by starchitects tend to be operated by someone.

and btw: My critique? ... I can’t look at that building in the shadowless white heat of Las Vegas and not help but notice the aluminum facade is providing some very much needed shade to the functional part of the clinic. Not my only take, but one that shouldn’t go unmentioned, as if the architect wouldn’t have thought of it.

see ... that’s an art critique of a building

 

Pretty much what Heypartner said. This is an design critique of a building but also a critique that clients are often more interested in the brand name of the architect who designed it than other considerations.

There is a lot of truth to this and Frank Gehry is currently the biggest name in architecture and a cultural star himself. This isn't a new phenomenon though the "Starchitect" movement started about 80 years ago when architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe got commissions mainly just do to their names. Even going back to the Renaissance artists / architects like Michealangelo were getting commissions just because they were a recognized name.