The Gehry Curse?

Man oh man, Frank O. Gehry is not having a good month. (Maybe it’s true what they say about the end of January, no matter how starchitect-y you are.) Last week came the news that Gehry Partners is being axed as architect of record on the Museum of Tolerance in Israel; now we’re hearing wind of a stop-work order on New York’s own Beekman Tower. At least the band-aids are coming now, rather than three years after construction — as in the case of MIT’s Stata Center, over which Gehry was sued for breach of contract (read: leaks and cracked masonry) in 2007. See what the world will be missing in the form of Israel’s flashiest to-be building, after the jump.

Renderings of Gehry Partners design for the Museum of Tolerance in Israel (above and below).

Gehry was tapped six years ago by Jerusalem’s Museum of Tolerance as architect for the center, though his best-laid plans have been vexed by constant community protest for its excess, especially in the wake of recent global economic turbulence. A statement issued by the museum board of trustees for the Simon Wiesenthal Center stated that an order is in place to redesign the project “to reflect today’s world economic realities, and will shortly name the new architect for the design.” Or perhaps the board just realized that the facade resembles a gift-wrapped paper shredder. (Artichoke? Colander? Elegant testament to a new millennium of racial and cultural tolerance?)

Top view of a model built for the project.

Interior sketch by Gehry Partners.

Filed Under:

Post comment as twitter logo facebook logo
Sort: Newest | Oldest

Architectural masterbation. Please Gehry, go get a room already, I don't need to see this.

Working with Israel is showing support for State terrorism and for the Appartheid.

Boycott the colony of Israel, boycott racism.

Any one of these six buildings would have been fine, but together it looks like a PIXAR animation version of the mad scientist's laboratory. Lacking a certain, uh,dignity I guess. But great for raves.

It's too bad. The whole region would have been united in it's hatred of the building.

Beautifully elaborate--like life! An amazing concept...

Needlessly elaborate. Lacking in any sense of real human proportion; inevitably wasteful (look at his other projects); fails to express any concept of "tolerance" (HORRID word anyway).

adhoc nailed it!

Gehry already screwed us in Brooklyn, glad he wont be doing it in Israel too...

google Atlantic Yards dddb ratner theft

Thanks For those masterpieces beautiful ... and thank you for you exemplify ........ greetings ...

yeah, they could have bombed together.

It looks like art not a building. I think there is too much complexity in form and becomes decorative more than functionabl a sense of visual diarrhea. A high cost fancy pants project for a museum that has a very serious theme.

In Grad school it was said to simplify, simplify, simplify. Good luck Gehry.

Since this Museum of pseudo-tolerance was going to be built in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, and over a moslem cemetery destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces, this is good news.

Israel is vey good at talking of tolerance, while acting as a racist colonialist occupation power.

Let's hope this museum will never be built

That interior model looks like it would be a beautiful room when built. Shielding the sun's direct rays while allowing in diffused daylight that would change throughout the day.