The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has sued Frank Gehry for leaks, mold, masonry cracks and drainage problems in the architect’s Stata Center, which opened at the university in 2004 with a price tag of $300 million. Gehry, in his characteristic low-bullshit manner, has told the press that problems in a building as complex as the Center were inevitable. In other words, there will be problems with most any Gehry building.
When Gehry’s Peter B. Lewis Building opened on the campus of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, I recall reports of snow and ice collecting in the roof’s strange nooks, then shooting off to narrowly miss pedestrians below. M.I.T. echoes this quirk with the Stata Center, noting that “sliding ice and snow from the building’s window boxes and other projecting roof areas” have caused structural damage and blocked emergency exits.
And in the classic example that I recalled when watching Sketches of Frank Gehry, Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles had a skin so shiny and angled so perfectly that on sunny days it would temporarily blind passers-by and heat adjacent sidewalks to molten temperatures.
Critics argue Gehry favors form over function. Gehry argues that clients such as M.I.T. are cheap, having rejected building elements that would have prevented design malfunctions. (Although in the case of the Disney Concert Hall, he paid handsomely to have the super-shiny surface sandblasted.) I don’t know which side is right, but when you’re dealing with an architect who has modeled buildings from crumpled wads of paper and has (proudly?) likened the Stata Center to “drunken robots,” you’re bound to get projects with quirks.