Eric the .5b ([info]point5b) wrote,
@ 2007-11-10 14:42:00
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Entry tags:design, karma

The Man's a Scultor, Not an Architect
MIT is suing Frank Gehry over the cartoon building caught in mid-collapse-design of the $300M Stata Center. Turns out, it looks far, far prettier than it works - and leaks like a sieve.

I remember a Wired article on the construction a few years back, with all the dubious people who just wanted a building they could work in - aren't weren't sure this was one - painted as silly old nerds who couldn't appreciate beauty.


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Buildings Learn, Sometimes People Don't
[info]amberley
2007-11-10 09:23 pm UTC (link)
A pity no one at MIT read Stewart Brand's marvelous How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built before wasting their money. Especially given that one of his best examples was at MIT.

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Re: Buildings Learn, Sometimes People Don't
[info]point5b
2007-11-11 05:19 am UTC (link)
Heh. Well, their mistake was hiring Gehry, in the end.

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[info]bruceb
2007-11-11 04:08 am UTC (link)
I must say that it always does me good to see Gehry get even a little comeuppance. I loathe the man's work.

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[info]point5b
2007-11-11 05:18 am UTC (link)
Some of his work's pretty, but they're sculptures, not buildings. They're all made to be viewed from outside; you never really see adoring galleries of his interiors.

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[info]wattj
2007-11-11 05:50 pm UTC (link)
I've photographed the building a couple of times, outside, and scouted inside. I have an almost personal relationship with the building... Mostly on account of the fact that it really isn't even very pretty on the outside. The interior, as Gehry DOES design entire buildings, not just pretty exteriors, is built on the principle that convenience allows people to avoid interacting... It's a maze of twisty little passages none alike, such that looking down from an overpass one might decide to leave the building, and 15 minutes later pass under that same walkway on your way out, without having gotten lost or distracted along the way. The passages are sufficiently narrow that should anyone get the intended positive result from this godawful design, and stop on the way from one place to another to converse with someone from another part of the building, they would fill up half the corridor, getting in everyone else's way.

The thing as a whole is completely eclectic, in a way that doesn't make me think of Gehry as a genius of architectural collage, but makes me think he didn't really have anything in mind. Even the exterior is three different buildings based on where you stand when you look at it.

I like creative architecture... I do... But... Architecture must always be functional. Functional is not an optional add-on.

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