At the Museum of Contemporary Art around a dozen projects make up a fine exhibition, all currently under construction and a demonstration of the fervent activity that takes place in the practice. Original sketches and computer generated drawings, photographs, models (and sculptures) at different scales, describe how ideas are conceived and developed in the ‘factory’ of the most famous architect in the world. Or at least one who has most influenced contemporary architecture, “Frank Gehry is the most profoundly influential architect of our time,” said MOCA Director Jeremy Strick. “His work, at once lyrical and radical, has redefined the physical limits of architecture, and its power and beauty have placed architecture at the very center of public discourse”. So what’s coming up after the Disney Concert Hall? Countless projects around the world – the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, a multi-functional centre for the airport at Venice, a hotel-winery in the Spanish region of Rioja. And amongst the first to be completed, the Ray and Maria Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (opening of which is due to take place in November), the Le Clos Jordan winery in Canada, the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum in Biloxi, (Mississippi) and the extension of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. A whole room will be dedicated to skyscrapers in New York City, with around twenty models for the Astor Place Hotel and proposals for the new headquarters of the New York Times for the competition won by Renzo Piano.
7.9.2003 – 26.1.2004
Frank O. Gehry: Work in Progress
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
California Plaza, 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
http://www.moca-la.org
