Last July at the Aspen Ideas Festival, one of the sessions was Frank Gehry in conversation with Tom Pritzker. Gehry is one of the US’s top architects, if not the country’s leading architect, known for his iconic buildings.
At the end of Gehry’s converstation, Fred Kent, founder and president of Project for Public Spaces (PPS), rose to ask a question.
Kent asked Gehry if iconic architecture also succeed as public space (it’s about 54 minutes into the video clip). Gehry was dismissive of both the questioner and the question then, and has since refused to consider the question.
James Fallows was in the audience and noted the dismissal in his weblog for The Atlantic, referring to Gehry calling Kent “pompous” and waving him away as, “a dismissive gesture, much as Louis XIV might have used to wave away some offending underling.” Fallows followed-up with additional articles, and links to others. Fallows expressed interest in the question but doesn’t “know enough about the argument as it involves Gehry’s buildings to have a view right now.” Presumably he’s researching the issue.
Jay Walljasper, PPS senior fellow, wrote a piece on the PPS weblog about the exchange.
It’s surprising to me that this issue hasn’t come to the forefront in discussions about the role of architecture in society and in urban planning circles. Maybe it has and I haven’t noticed. To my way of thinking, this is one of the most pressing issues architects face and they should all—including Gehry—be answering the question posed by Kent. As Walljasper writes, “... discussions about how we create congenial public places where people can come together is a major issue of our times. Public space is not just an aesthetic detail, or minor sideshow for the design community. It’s central to the fabric of lives and future of our society….”
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