Architect Frank Gehry's building designs are remarkable; I've touched the multi-plated Seattle Music Museum. But now leaks and mold in one of his non-rectangular buildings has gotten on MIT's nerves sufficiently to launch a law suit against his architectural firm.
The $300-million Stata Center is suffering from masonry cracking, and from sliding ice and snow blocking emergency exits. Gehry blames cost-cutting and construction problems.
Its one thing for a concert hall which serves just as much as a scuplture as a building and it is quite another for a university building which has to first and foremost be safe, secondly work, thirdly run efficiently, and only then by a symbol of some snapshot in times idea of "innovation". Hope they win.
Posted by: Jimmy Noh | Nov 13, 2007 at 09:44 AM
A key part of the article:
...clients accept the risks [of a Gehry design] because "they'll get a building like no other building."
Posted by: Dennis Helmick | Nov 14, 2007 at 01:59 PM
There is a Frank Gehry 15 story condominium within one mile of my office in Baltimore that was built in 1976 (Frank Gehry worked for the owner - The Rouse Company). Twenty years ago the entire brick facade was removed because of leakage, and brick walls coming loose. The $31 million lawsuit was made against Gehry. This building is a typical condominium, and was designed before Gehry's more recent organic style. Its construction is very common steel stud and brick on a concrete frame. BTW: Gehry's real name is Goldberg
Posted by: Ed Goldberg AIA, NCARB | Nov 14, 2007 at 05:31 PM