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In Frank Gehry, we are honouring today one of the world's most distinguished and widely acknowledged architects. The very obtrusiveness of architecture, its physical presence on our landscapes which cannot be erased by means other than high explosive, has sometimes made it a form of expression regarded with something less than affection and respect, especially if the form seems more an indulgence of the architect's gratuitous imagination than an attempt to provide a building appropriate to its intended use and sympathetic to its context. Neither of these criticisms are applied to Frank Gehry's buildings. People now go to Bilbao in order to look at his masterpiece, the Guggenheim Museum, rather than to visit the museum because they happen to be in Bilbao - some two million of them since the museum opened in 1997. For Gehry, the building, like the furniture he designs, is the product of profound thought and of a complex conceptual process. |
His attention to these needs led university officials to choose him as the architect for the Weisman Art Museum in 1992. It was important to the museum staff that this new building be instantly recognizable as belonging to the world of art and a unique place on the university campus in Minneapolis. The president of the university told Gehry that whatever he did, "don't build another brick lump"--referring to most of the other buildings on the campus. The museum was to be a welcoming and accessible place for students, university staff, and museum visitors. Gehry was interested in creating galleries that would be beautiful, but that would not overpower the art that is displayed there.
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His attention to these needs led university officials to choose him as the architect for the Weisman Art Museum in 1992. It was important to the museum staff that this new building be instantly recognizable as belonging to the world of art and a unique place on the university campus in Minneapolis. The president of the university told Gehry that whatever he did, "don't build another brick lump"--referring to most of the other buildings on the campus. The museum was to be a welcoming and accessible place for students, university staff, and museum visitors. Gehry was interested in creating galleries that would be beautiful, but that would not overpower the art that is displayed there. |
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Scanned from slides taken on site by Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton College. Loyola Law School Frank Gehry 1981-91 This urban campus, occupying an entire city block, is close to down town Los Angeles. Pilar Viladas explains that this project gave Gehry the opportunity "to test his vision of 'a pileup of buildings, like an acropolis. ' The classical simile took on added meaning when the client specifically asked for a campus that had a sense of place and a design that referred to the ancient traditions and architecture of law" (Architecture of Frank Gehry 161). Burns BuildingA parking garage forms the boundary on the long east side while this yellow stucco building is on the west side. |
read more at: http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/Guggenheim_Bilbao.html