Haydain Neale, 1970–2009
Transit City and Transit Cities
Newsstand: November 23, 2009
The Making of a Medley
Rebuilding a Child's Paradise
Little known fact... Frank Gehry hates using computers. He never used one, and likely never will. Gehry Partners LLP, however, has pioneered the use of computers in architecture and design. Nothing built by Gehry Partners LLP over the past fifteenish years would have been possible without their methods and technology.
The AGO featured some of the latter a little while ago with the exhibit of Ghery Partners LLP's (huge) working models. But the true catalyst of all Gehry related designs are not technological, but purely analog. The sketch (thank god for napkins) is at the heart of it all. Frank's gestural movements denote energy, movement, form, ideas. These sparks are what evolve into the better known metallic reflections.
For a few more days, you can check out these pen-on-paper masterpieces. Curator, U of T Professor Larry Richards put together an exhibit spanning 25 years featuring eight museum projects, some sketchbooks from the 70s and 80s, and other spontaneous sketches that are displayed for the first time. There's a lot of stuff to draw your attention.
The exhibit runs for just a few more days at the University of Toronto Art Centre (15 King College Circle, north side of the University College Courtyard.) Hours are noon to 5pm until Friday June 16th. Final day: Saturday June 17, noon to 4pm. $5 admission, but free for U of T students, faculty, staff.
[photo: Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - Frank Gehry]
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So.. Gehry basically draws some scribbles on a napkin, and passes it to a team of experts who turn those scribbles into real functional buildings. Then Gehry takes all the credit. Sweet! I need a job like THAT.
it's a biiiiiiiit more complex than than that.. but yea, that's about it. Frankie is the visionary, so he makes the big bucks and gets to work with Brad Pitt. He draws on a napkin in this fashion but still has an idea of what the building will look like. his minions then make models out of blocks and paper and show Franko and he makes suggestions. and they make more models.
Gehry Partners LLP is actually very model based. instead of doing the computer work and making a model from that, they make a model, digitize it, work on it, make a model again, digitize.... they were the first to work in this way. the models are also at a large scale (and were at the ROM for a bit) There is even one outside his office which is a 1-to-1 detail model of window connections.