I'm curious to see your opinions on whether you feel Gehry is a visionary who will have a lasting impact on architecture, or if he is just a novelty that will fade with time.  I'm on the fence right now...  :?

I wouldnt say that he is a visionary.  But his buildings will certainly have a lasting impact on society.  IMO I believe that it will be a negative impact...similar to the impact that the 'cookie cutter' stadiums of the '70s.  They left a lasting impression on society and sparked a resurgence of more classical sports venues.  I believe that his buildings will inspire future architects to stay in touch with the context of the project and look to incorporate their structure into the urban frame as much as possible.

His buildings are great sculpture.  Some of his interior spaces are also great.  I am thinking of the Disney Hall in LA.  However the buildings are generally a detriment to the street / public space.  In my opinion an architect's greatest responsibility is to the public.  In this area he fails, as do most contemporary architects.

 

I recently read this story on the http://www.pps.org website:

 

I traveled to Bilbao on my honeymoon and was very excited to see the famous Guggenheim Museum and all that it has supposedly done for Bilbao. It was mid afternoon on a beautiful Saturday in September when we came upon the building. The well-traveled Jeff Koons flower puppy sculpture was in front, with some attractive seating and plantings in the foreground. Behind it was the inspiring sculptural building topped with the proud Guggenheim sign and an outdoor café below an awning, all still enticing us to come closer.

 

At this point I was sure this was going to be a great building with all kinds of innovative and modern place-creating design ideas that I could learn from and bring back to my work. But as we got closer, there were almost no people. What we thought was the entrance near the café turned out to only lead to a narrow back stair. The dynamic rhythm that we had experienced throughout the city and that had drawn us to the building suddenly stopped. The building seemed to want to separate itself from that rhythm through a void that transitioned the pedestrian to a separate, isolated experience.

 

After failing on our first guess at the entrance, we realized it was at the bottom of a staircase we were hoping to avoid. About 100 three foot deep steps curved down to a dark set of doors - they were the kind of steps where you are forced to step awkwardly on, starting with the same foot each time. The only people there were a middle aged couple who had stopped about half way up, apparently out of breath and needing rest and perhaps reassurance.

 

My wife and I endeavored to make the trip down. By the time we reached the bottom, we entered the building feeling small and unimportant – very differently from how we were feeling just a moment ago leaving the street grid. We entered the building, looked up at the admission price, and peered into the narrow cavern through which one was supposed to go further into the museum galleries. Without saying a word, we retreated out the door and headed back up the stairs.

Knowing the waterfront was on the other side of the building, we assumed that side of the building would have more amenities and be more friendly. Unfortunately, to get there required going down an even longer and equally uncomfortable set of stairs. The stairs led to another very large empty plaza that connected to the river. The waterfront side of the building consisted of a series or blank walls, hidden nooks, a reflecting pond that looked more like a moat, and a couple more sets of stairs that seemed to lead to nowhere. Even more than the front of the museum, this side was void of amenity, and void of people.

 

As we continued around the building along the waterfront, we came across the only amenities on that side of the museum. There were two flat backless cement benches lined up with three scrawny trees. This area is on a promontory in the river; the building is closest to the water here and there are views up and down the very attractive riverfront. Just looking at a map, it would be easy to assume that this might be the best place in the city where people might gather, pass some time, and the experience the culture and food and social life of Bilbao.

 

There were four people in this space. There was a middle aged tourist couple (Actually the same couple that we saw resting on the entrance steps) sitting trying to figure out their digital camera. The other two people were young men standing separately against the blank reflective walls of the building. I took a couple pictures that perfectly demonstrate a William H. Whyte quote about blank walls, how they are dead zones that contribute nothing to a place.

Only seconds after I took the pictures, the two men ran over to the couple and mugged them – they simply grabbed the camera out of their hands and ran off. Anywhere else in Bilbao, we would have yelled something and there would have been people around to try stopping them. But instead, with no one else in sight to help, we felt isolated and vulnerable, and all we could do was watch. We later told police about it, and they told us that there are muggings in that same location very frequently.

 

In the span of 10 minutes that we spent around the museum, I witnessed the first mugging of my life -- and I’ve lived my entire life in New York City.

As we walked away from the museum, we tried to figure out what we had just experienced. As we got further away from the building, we were relieved to again experience what life is like without the burden of such oppressive design. We saw people starting to talk to each other again, others stopped and looked out at the water, enjoying the view. There was even a couple kissing on a bench.

I agree, the section of the museum along the riverfront is very confusing, you keep walking for quite awhile figuring the entrance must be right around the corner but it takes awhile to find, and actually the entrance from the water side is more of a back door.  The "front" entrance, indeed, does descend quite an exceptional vertical distance for a public entrance.  This is because you are actually descending the river bank, however, there seems no reason as to why the entrance couldn't have simply been put at the level of the downtown. 

 

The building itself is quite large.  If you are expecting something on the scale of the Vontz Center or CAC in Cincinnati you will be surprised by the size of this building, which in my estimation covers an area approaching that of Paul Brown Stadium, not counting its surrounding plaza.  In fact the Guggenheim Bilbao is home to the single largest art gallery in the world, which is ellipsoid shaped and the permanent site of "Serpent", a giant series of 5 steel sculptures by Richard Serra.  I think this sculpture and room are good fits for one another, but unfortunately the way the sound bounces around the room ruins it somewhat. 

 

 

If you go there now, the paintings are gone and Serpent has the place all to itself.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to quickly find a better picture of this space.  And what is really funny about the Guggenheim, Bilbao is that there is virtually no art by Spaniards in it.  In fact, occpying the most visible spot in the entire museum are three giant red Venus's by Cincinnati native and OU dropout Jim Dine.  In most of the rest of the museum nearly every piece on display is by an American artist.   

 

The building itself is overall, in my opinion, fairly attractive and it works pretty well in its location.  But it is not without its warts, and the critical frenzy over this building was way out of proportion.  Go there now and it is already starting to look dated, hopefully it will age well.  The Vontz Center, completed just a year or so after this one, sure isn't, and the CAC is a big joke if you ask me. 

 

Unfortunately Mr. Gehry seems to be a one-hit wonder, when I have seen him diverge from his Bilbao approach and materials he has floundered.  I sort of wish he had not become so popular -- the thing about this building is that it is weakened quite a bit by there being more than one.  If there was just this buiding, it would be more special.  By comparison, Gaudi's cathedral in Barcelona is a truly mind-blowing building -- there are so many ideas there that appear nowhere else in the world.  But if there were a half dozen of them, it would just be a style. 

 

 

 

he's a dolled up portman

 

no sense of human scale.

Is he my favorite architect? No. Do I agree that a lot of his buildings are isolated sculptures with little regard for their surroundings? Yes. Still, I think it would have been an awesome sight to see this on Cleveland's lakefront (the Progressive Insurance Tower):

Was that for Cleveland?!?!?!? :lol:

There is little Spanish art in the Guggenheim because Bilboa is Basqueland.  The Basque are a seperate people, with a seperate language and history.  Their language, interestingly enough, is not related to any other European language, and probably dates to some Neolithic European language.  They hate the Spanish and see them as occupiers of their land.

he's a product of his time and place. and a trendsetter. until recently we have not had the technology to do gehry-esque kinds of things with large structures. he was the first and foremost to take full advantage of new materials and digital design. he seems to be personally played out creatively, but like it or not there will be much more sculptural gehrying around with big buildings by others in the future -- that you can bet on.