Archinect’s editorial is no stranger to covering project delays. In the second half of 2022 alone, we covered news of construction setbacks at the International African American Museum, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. However, such high-profile examples are far from outliers but are instead representative of an endemic issue in the AEC industry.
According to research by University of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg, whose team analyzed 16,000 construction projects around the world, only 8.5% of projects are delivered on time and on budget. In search of an explanation, Flyvbjerg and his colleague Dan Gardner turned to what at first seemed an unexpected resource: Frank Gehry.
At first glance, Gehry’s spectacular, unorthodox exercises in form and materiality should inevitably lie within the 91.5% of projects that fail to meet their time or budget targets. However, as Gehry told Flyvbjerg and Gardner in their recent article for Harvard Business Review, the high-profile architect is highly reliable. “People presume I’m going to be over budget,” Gehry told the authors. “Which isn’t true. All my buildings are built to the budgets agreed upon with clients.”
Gehry’s track record supports this self-confidence. Flyvbjerg and Gardner cite the architect’s iconic Guggenheim Bilbao, which was not only delivered on time but was also completed $3 million under budget. Through conversations with Gehry and his colleagues, Flyvbjerg and Gardner use their Harvard Business Review article to set out four principles behind Gehry’s success which they believe can be applied across industries.
The first rule, namely “Make sure you have the power to deliver what you’re accountable for,” uses Gehry’s power struggle to lead the design and construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall as a metaphor for the importance of control in a project. “Frank Gehry’s long struggle to create the Walt Disney Concert Hall taught him something fundamental,” Flyvbjerg and Gardner note. “Control was indispensable. He had to have it, and keep it, from beginning to end.”
The second rule, namely “Always ask why,” encourages architects to understand a client’s motivations for a project rather than simply accepting or rejecting a brief. “By starting projects with meaningful questioning, and by carefully listening to the answers, Gehry figures out what the clients really want rather than what they think they want,” Flyvbjerg and Gardner explain.
To prove their point, the authors cite both the Guggenheim Bilbao and the 8 Spruce Street tower in Manhattan as examples where Gehry’s probing of the client’s intentions led to the creation of a scheme far different from what the client originally requested but to acclaimed results.
The third rule, “Simulate, iterate, test,” encourages architects to take time at the beginning of projects to walk clients through the development of past works at the firm to better understand their process. In Gehry’s case, the architect’s process involves constant input from the client.
“In doing this work, Gehry collaborates with others to create models and digital simulations, and he constantly asks for candid judgments,” Flyvbjerg and Gardner note. “At key stages, when the project must commit to design decisions before work advances, the client must give approval. In this way, the design is enriched and strengthened by the client’s perspective.”
The final rule, “Think slow, act fast,” unpacks Gehry’s unshakeable dedication to careful planning before a project breaks ground on site. Such a dedication may seem counterintuitive to the goal of meeting project timelines, but as Flyvbjerg and Gardner explain, Gehry’s approach ultimately wins.
“When projects are launched without detailed and rigorous plans, issues are left unresolved that will resurface during delivery, causing delays, cost overruns, and breakdowns,” the authors explain. “Eventually, a project that started at a sprint becomes a long slog through quicksand.”
In constant, Gehry’s commitment to the planning process is key to untangling problems before projects reach construction. The authors cite Gehry’s experience at 8 Spruce Street, where extensive digital modeling on the façade occupied a significant slice of the planning timeline but nonetheless “cost a small fraction of what it would have to fix the same problems had they been discovered during installation.”
Flyvbjerg and Gardner's full analysis of Gehry's approach to time and budgets is available in the Harvard Business Review here.
21 Comments
Gehry reminds me of James Cameron in that while the artistic value of his team's projects could be subject to debate, their contribution to the technology behind the production process may well outlive the relevance of their blockbuster artwork. Cameron helped spearhead the creation of new motion capture, 3D filming, and other VFX technologies in order to realize the Avatar films. Similarly, Gehry wound up starting Gehry Tech (Weird that the article only mentioned CATIA) while delivering Bilbao.
All that said, I always sense a massive disconnect reading relatively mainstream articles on the AEC business - including so-called groundbreaking analysis from the MBB consultancies. The authors are obviously so far away from the trenches of DFMA that the lessons these reports and articles are highly generalized - Wow Digital Twins! - that they are useless to industry professionals. There are rarely lessons on How, just the What and Who.
One can only find more in-depth case studies in industry publications and conferences, which are way too dry for the general management audience that HBR and the MBB crowd target.
As for FOG's lesson - I'd love to know more about the STATA's problems. The MIT lawsuit had turned up several design defects, with the GC blaming the architects and vice versa.
You seem to really like acronyms and initialisms. Have you considered a career in the defense industry?
I still see the fourth side facade of 8 spruce street flat due to over budget, and his Grand Avenue project need to be re look at due to over budget, and also lawsuits from MIT and Walt Disney concert hall due to over budget.
The only way a FOGA project comes out "under budget" is if the original budget itself was set to be rather high. Hence, setting a high initial budget may be the greatest contribution here.
Better than pretending a building is going to be cheaper than it is, and then negotiating throughout construction and hope to avoid a train wreck. Gehry was a commercial architect for a very long time before he became the architect that other architects wish didnt exist. He can be pretty professional. No surprise that he can manage a budget (including low ones). Seems like so many of us only like him when we feel like we can flirt with a bit of schadenfreude.
Do we have the information to say this is how it works with him? The suggestion from SOD is that his budgets are probably always pretty high and thus accurate and achievable, rather than trying to undercut pricing like a lot of architects. This seems plausible given his stardom. People who are interested in hiring him are likely to be able to stomach higher budgets anyway and not be seeking a lowest price architect.
It is certainly part of Gehry's narrative. It comes up in his books and biographies quite often, explained as part of his learned experience making shopping malls and other commercial projects (that you would not know were by him), from before he fired his staff and re-started his practice as a design-led firm. The switch to CATIA is part of the same narrative, and seems to be legit from people I've spoken to who worked for him. But who knows. I'm not his accountant. He did a lot of crazy cheap buildings before he did all the crazy expensive ones. According to him those buildings were driven by budget as much as anything. I guess all the disbelief from architects comes from knowing how hard it is to do even shitty buildings on budget and on time, it's hard to imagine being able to do so much better work than everyone else and still keep the numbers working. FWIW, if we are looking for explanations outside Gehry himself, I think it is not so much the budgets that explain the work as the clients.
Will, no schadenfreude (sp?) here, I am just pointing out, as a person working on commercial projects and with commercial clients that many times we overshoot our budgets cuz they are set so low in the first place and the client always wants something "special". The types of clients that Gehry have and the clout that the practice has, they have a much higher "dollar per sq.ft" rate. Now, the fact that the project land in these budgets even after so many delays is laudable, but in no way should this be a comparison for other commercial architects. Hence, a masterclass that teaches this is simply not applicable to the vast majority of architects. Good for Gehry though!
The lower the budget, the better the building.
(One architect's opinion.)
That explains why all the lowest-bid-takes-all public buildings in Canada are so awesome!
I didn't know he'd done a bunch of public buildings in Canada. But that condo tower in Toronto looks pretty pricey.
yeah. It does, even while the plans are surprisingly rubbish (BIG's Toronto condo on the other hand has very good plans). But that is not what I meant, anyway, as I suppose you know. I'm not talking about Gehry being the lowest bid on the block, only that a lot of the buildings in Canada that follow that procurement model do not seem to be worth the minimum investment they are saddled with. We seem to have a hard time investing in quality lately. One of the few offices that seems able to get somewhere with low budgets is 5468796. But I would put them in with Gehry as being quite interested in working out what the client is after and using that knowledge (and a pro forma) to get the numbers to work.
Yes, I meant that, in my view, the bigger and more complicated his projects, the less satisfying they are formally, spatially, and materially. An exception might be Disney Hall, and maybe Fred & Ginger. But the power of (many of) his early, rather humbly made, pre-global projects always have impressed me way more than the extravaganzas. Novelty must have something to do with it, as well as specific architectural moves.
In the early eighties, Glen Small called Gehry out at SCI-ARC.
He was ousted by Gehry and his cadre of young architects at the time.
This is a great documentary done by Lucia Small, one of his talented daughters who recently passed away leaving behind many people sad and leaving us with some beautiful documentaries she made.
go to 1:26 to hear his take on Gehry. Glen is a true renegade rhyming with grenade!
Gehry has that genius-level business side to him. I am saying this as a compliment.
This got me wondering who are some of the most successful architectural entrepreneurs/business leaders around. Art Gensler is definitely up there.
Ingels and CEO Sheela Søgaard given how quickly the firm has expanded and the successful introduction of financial discipline under her watch. But they are subsidized by less-than-competitive wages.
Charles Luckman is a forgotten name from the mid-century but he had one of the weirdest career trajectories of a major architect - He finished his first career in corporate America as the world's youngest CEO of a major corporation, before retiring to pursue his architectural passion - starting a very successful design firm.
And of course, John Portman: the architect who took matters into his own hands by becoming a real estate developer in order to realize his architectural dreams.
I'll look that up, Orhan, thanks. My only experience with him was when I did some work on a competition for Melicia at their fantastic house on Thornton in Venice. He used the garage as a studio, and grunted hello when she introduced me. We worked upstairs.
hahaha...In return, Melicia didn't like me either. When we were introduced she said to me, the student, "I hate Turks" with her Serbian accent. Later, she liked me and invited me to her parties in that house. It was an early passive solar house. I took Glen there a few years ago and we both got disappointed with what the new owners did to it.
citizen, probably you and I crossed paths many times.
I'm sure we have...
@monosierra, Kuma is like that too. He is genius at business, and very good at talking. His work ethic is also off the charts. FWIW, if there is a tipping point skill that I noticed in the truly successful architects I have worked with (mostly in Japan) it was that they were very good at the public face of business. Not all in the same way, not even close. But there is something to be said for that presence, of mind and of attention/focus. Also a kind of openness that is unexpected. Its kind of mesmerizing, really. Not that any of that explains Gehry's effort to bring buildings in on budget, but it might be part of it....
Yeah, I notice the great ones are excellent communicators - not just effective salesmanship selling hot air but being to put together the client's challenges and needs into a cohesive design strategy and communicate that in a clear visual and verbal manner. While of course bringing design flair to the table (Or else they'd be competing with SOM, KPF, and friends)
IM Pei was very good in this regard - so good that he was snidely branded as a salesman by peers who lost commisions to him, a Chinese dude in midcentury America. Louis Kahn, who was prone to meandering into soliloquoys during pitches, was more gracious in his praise for Pei's presentation skills. Pei returned the compliment by pointing out he'd swap most of his portfolio just for a chance to build something as great as Kahn's masterpieces.
That video of how different starchitects pitched 425 Park to the developer was eye-opening. You don't see the likes of Foster, Zaha, Koolhaas having to present to the client themselves but there they were, in a conference room, trying to sell their visions. All of them - Rogers included - missed the mark badly except Foster, who brought a big ass model and laid out the financial and aesthetic logic of his firm's design in a simple, logical manner. The client wasn't interested in Delirious New York (Though OMA had the most stunning design of the five) and Schumacher was terrible despite his constant kowtowing to the gods of capitalism. Rogers' partner seemed embarassed by their own design.
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