Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

Some randomly stacked boxes covered in crumpled aluminum foil. Brilliant stuff. Hard to tell if it was designed by a hack architect or a toddler playing with blocks.
 
The tower component in Gehry's latest project in downtown LA doesn't have has famous signature flourishes either. It does have that disjointed 'deconstructive' appearance that he is also known for- which is also seen in the Toronto design.
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Here's a link to a recent article: https://www.latimes.com/business/st...-designed-grand-complex-reaches-halfway-point
 
Some randomly stacked boxes covered in crumpled aluminum foil. Brilliant stuff. Hard to tell if it was designed by a hack architect or a toddler playing with blocks.

This has been the running critique of Gehry for decades. I'm not sure if the Simpsons clip has been shared in the 414 pages of this thread before, but in case anyone hasn't seen it:

 
This has been the running critique of Gehry for decades. I'm not sure if the Simpsons clip has been shared in the 414 pages of this thread before, but in case anyone hasn't seen it:
So much so that it has become cliche. I was never a huge fan of his more extreme deconstructivist designs- although I do like the Disney building with its stone and curving stainless steel planes that read more like a huge sculpture:

I think his better work is more restrained and thought his AGO reno was among is best work. He's done an awesome addition to the Philadelphia Museum of art with stone interiors.
 
So much so that it has become cliche. I was never a huge fan of his more extreme deconstructivist designs- although I do like the Disney building with its stone and curving stainless steel planes that read more like a huge sculpture:

I think his better work is more restrained and thought his AGO reno was among is best work. He's done an awesome addition to the Philadelphia Museum of art with stone interiors.

This is a typical kind of lifecycle of thought around this type of projects in Toronto.

1 - A Bold vision is introduced. People get excited
2 - The bold vision is massively downscaled by the City Planning committee
3 - People react negatively
4 - Then people start accept the downscaled version and find faults in the bold vision in the first place.
5 - Cycle repeats
 
This city's conservatism continues to negatively affect building design. Gehry's original concept was original and exciting with its curves so characteristic of his most iconic structures. Unfortunately each reiteration has made the design plainer and more and more boxy - now just a deconstructivist vision of the boring glass boxes proliferating in the city This will not be remembered as a tribute to his career - not when you compare what is coming out of firms like MAD and Zaha Hadid.
 
This city's conservatism continues to negatively affect building design. Gehry's original concept was original and exciting with its curves so characteristic of his most iconic structures. Unfortunately each reiteration has made the design plainer and more and more boxy - now just a deconstructivist vision of the boring glass boxes proliferating in the city This will not be remembered as a tribute to his career - not when you compare what is coming out of firms like MAD and Zaha Hadid.
Sad yet predictable. The art and architecture comes after the financial viability :(
But it will look quite plain compered to what he envisioned in 2013 lol
8 years later and still not approved let alone starting to build
 
This city's conservatism continues to negatively affect building design. Gehry's original concept was original and exciting with its curves so characteristic of his most iconic structures. Unfortunately each reiteration has made the design plainer and more and more boxy - now just a deconstructivist vision of the boring glass boxes proliferating in the city This will not be remembered as a tribute to his career - not when you compare what is coming out of firms like MAD and Zaha Hadid.
Why don't you wait until it's built before writing it off?
 
This city's conservatism continues to negatively affect building design. Gehry's original concept was original and exciting with its curves so characteristic of his most iconic structures. Unfortunately each reiteration has made the design plainer and more and more boxy - now just a deconstructivist vision of the boring glass boxes proliferating in the city This will not be remembered as a tribute to his career - not when you compare what is coming out of firms like MAD and Zaha Hadid.
What does the city have to do with this? Do you seriously think that if the city approved the initial design it would actually get built? We would still likely get the value engineered version - just 3 towers of it.
 

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