Frank Gehry and the Starchitect
roel1943 via flickr; Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, wikipedia.org; Norman Foster, 30 St. Mary Axe, joshkritzer
via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
I read an article in yesterday's LA Times about Frank Gehry that begins by recognizing
the architect's 80th birthday on Saturday. The story covered his career, but the writer, the paper's architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, also talked a lot about the declining fortunes of the world economy and its effect on Gehry, his projects, his firm and the profession in general.
Will this economic depression spell the demise of the starchitect? Architects have been
marketed into celebrities along the lines of supermodels and the Jonas Brothers. Even my mother, whose knowledge of the famous in design circles is limited to Martha Stewart, knows the name Frank Gehry. She wouldn't know a Norman Foster from a Renzo Piano, but even those two gentlemen have become stars in the architectural firmament.
Were their big, splashy buildings designed simply to promote their ascending star quality?
And, is this tanking economy going to spell the end of that type of big architectural statement? We were watching a TV program the other night with economists and business journalists talking about the state of things, and the outlook for the future. One economist talked about the good that will result from these bad times, a better sense of community and the need for us to turn away from the idea that big is better, to the notion that small is good. One of the journalists mentioned that he has been studying small community banks in the past months whose financial health is on solid ground, while we watch behemoths like Citibank, and Bank of America collapse under their own weight. Maybe that's where architecture will be heading. The starchitects of the next 15 years may not enjoy the same kind of name recognition among the general public, but they may have very successful practices designing smaller, efficient buildings that are still architecturally interesting. Mr. Gehry says that even with all the accolades and fame, at age 80, this reality may be the future for Gehry Partners as well.
Posted by designslinger at 3/2/2009 6:00 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Architects
Tags: Frank Gehry Norman Foster Renzo Piano architecture
Categories: Architecture, Architects
Tags: Frank Gehry Norman Foster Renzo Piano architecture
Comments