Category: Architecture

Witold Rybczynski has a new slideshow up at Slate, examining the architecture of Denver’s art museum, on the occasion of Liebeskind’s new addition, to be completed in September.

Whether you like this sort of mannered architecture is a matter of taste. Frank Gehry’s swirlings and churnings have always seemed lighthearted and whimsical, buoyed by an endearing take-it-or-leave-it quality. Libeskind’s forms strike me as aggressive. Standing in front of his building is like being buttonholed by someone shouting insistently in your face: And this! And this! And this!

I hope my “Denver correspondent” (that means you, Craig) will provide some comments on this.

(I really need to get around to reading his City Life sometime this summer, but it’s The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril for me right now, followed by Gilead.)

Okay, I’ve goofed on Frank Gehry before, with his “Ooh! Look at me! I’m using curved metal surfaces AGAIN!”

But nothing really prepared me for his inane new design for Brooklyn, centering on Bruce Ratner’s new NBA arena for the Nets (guess what? It uses curved metal surfaces!)

Yes, as you can see below, by 2011, Brooklyn will look like the set of a Tim Burton movie. Congratulations. Glad the NYTimes likes it.

(Probably doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that real estate developer Ratner is the Times’ partner on their new building.)

Gehry’s also a bullshit furniture designer.