When Mayor Garcetti announced Gehry’s appointment, he declared him to be the “Olmsted of our time,” referring to godfather of landscape design, Frederick Law Olmsted, creator of New York City’s Central Park. He is nothing of the sort. As Gehry himself admitted: “I told them I’m not a landscape guy.”
What he might prove to be is the funding-friendly, catch-all solution to pulling the river’s statutory partners together to make something happen.
— Olly Wainwright
"If he can suppress his expensively eye-catching cliches and channel the spirit of his early work – when he was a rough-and-ready bricoleur of everyday LA, a magician of chain-link fencing and corrugated sheeting – he might well be the man for the job. Like the rest of this chaotic infrastructure-riven mess of a city, the LA river’s character as a seductive, abrasive edgeland must be celebrated for what it is."
Related coverage:
22 Comments
No, he is not.
Agree.
But, but, but ... he's a magician with chain link fence!
I'm going to take a different position and say "yes" he is perfect for the job- because it's what the city wants.
When FLO designed Central Park, the goal was to change a landscape that was developable. The perimeter around the park created opportunities for growth in the city with respect the grid and revenue. Since then Landscape practices have become less involve with capital and more with ecology- for good and bad.
FOG will focus on similar goals of creating a revenue strategy for the city. Given that he can be given partial credit for the phrase "Bilbao effect" -buildings constucted in a landscape to attract capital -he is a fitting design icon. In Bilbao it was tourism, in LA it will be development dollars.
That argument made- given his early desire to keep the concrete in place as an "architectural element" reveals how unfamiliar he is green infrastructure, ecological systems and landscape at even the most basic terms (save as an picturesque aesthetic meant to frame a building). He really is out of the box in this one. He is not qualified to design a masterplan for a landscape this complex and large. But this isn't about a landscape of systems, but one of economics
^Agree with Marc completely….should have hired James Corner Field Operations….instead of The LA Infatuation….going to be hard to pull this one off with silver cardboard.
I third the choice of James Corner Field Operations. The Bilbao effect is so 90s, and frankly LA does not need it. We have enough tourist "Bilbaos"
I Fourth James Corner.
First of all, to counter one of the politically charged complaints, Olmsted's work was absolutely "top-down". Did Olmsted entertain the whims of quirky local performance artists? No.
Regarding the hiring decision, I wouldn't want James Corner to lead a project. On his own he creates fluid and vaguely generative designs that are clumsy, derivative and banal. I'd rather see him collaborate with an design architect
"politically charged complaints"
It is not politically charged complaint, it is a reality that architecture is "for the people and not by the people" as Frampton said. It seems that there are 2 main schools of architecture...one concerned with the immediate local beneficiaries / end users, and the other with the conesuers and consumers. A public project of this nature should be done by a designer who falls into the first school.
There are not actually two schools. The design process is ultimately the same. What we're talking about is to what degree does an architecture firm stroke the egos of community activists. Of course the space should serve the public, but the issue is primarily with the 2015 optics that surround the name "Gehry" and the fear that it will overshadow other individuals who would like more control. Projects like this need to be done well because they will last for centuries. The egos of specific community activists and performance artists should not affect the long term plans. We can't confuse hand-holding and public relations with actually serving the public and producing an excellent civic space for generations to come.
Agreed- Olmsted did not indulge the needs of quirky performance artists. Instead pandered to the promenade, well to do people who walked walked with a specific posture and gate simply to be seen. The actors are relative, but they are both spectacles.
Therefore the question is- which spectacle will this process and plan facilitate? It's too early to tell given that Gehry has not revealed how he intends to engage the public, but it is fairly evident that the client prefers a top down process which favors building to landscape as a means to articulate the future.
I would also say the "scale of generations" is simply too short. Place making within the time frame of a parcel or district is a matter of decades, if not only years. Given how climate conditions are changing in California and the uncertainty with respect to what the next normal will be, thinking at an ecological scale should be part of the equation.
+++"thinking at an ecological..."
davvid likes shiny things
who would like more control than gehry himself?
+++ "It's too early to tell..."
But that doesn't stop people from criticizing a design that does not yet exist. Such is the shallow and cynical state of our architectural discourse.
To be clear, I don't have a problem with FOG. I have a problem with his selection based on the scope and temporal complexity of the project. I have a problem with the client for making this into a celebrity selection.
To be transparent, IMO there are two red flags and two yellows that immediately come to mind.
Red flags-
1- Gehry himself admitted he isn't an LA.
2- He thinks the concrete should remain as an architectural feature, while making mention of an ecological system. There are notable contradictions in these two statements which call into question his qualifications.
Yellow flags-
1- His desire to make something special, by branding it. That's a development approach. The river will
2- The lack of public engagement on his team. I'm not asking for stages, but that watershed is huge and heterogenous. you need to get on the ground and talk to residents in addition to doing the math about storm event, sub watersheds networks and drainage patterns.
Is Gehry working alone? or will he be collaborating with landscape architects/urbanists?
A fair point. No designer works alone on a complex project.
Olin is a good landscape architecture firm, but I would not associate them with urbanism.
In addition, despite the team based nature of design, we are all too aware that the lead team drives the bus.
The LA River is a mix of a natural system and a human developed, urban system. Neither FOG or any landscape firm has the technical expertise to truly understand how to "join" these two systems. The whole process will incorporate a top down designer who will diagram and draw empty ideas because they are visual, formal designers who will not emphasize anything innovative or radical. Ecological design has many potential innovations waiting in the wing but very few practitioners who bring this knowledge into the real world. The fact that we are talking about Olmstead displays a prevailing idea towards the River as park, which is boring, small minded, and OBVIOUS.
Jayness,
Agreed, the LA river and watershed is not a park, nor should it be wholly treated as such.
FLO is being primarily because he was referenced boy FOG. Think of it as a Dan Quale/Kennedy moment. The reference to FLO is indeed loaded and references the image of the park to create an image of success.
That said, the formal patterning that Olmstead used to construct Central Park hides a very sophisticated understanding of the park as a piece of infrastructure capable of managing the hydrology of the surrounding area while expanding the reach of the city to the north. Granted- and the city became more impervious, the park was unable to perform. Now that we find ourselves in a moment of revelation that landscape can be both/and/other, it wouldn't hurt to look back at that project and take note of how not to design long term strategies for the watershed which prevent the key parts of the green infrastructure from failing in such a short period of times as seen with Central Park.
Out of curiosity, who is on your list?
olmsted was brought up by the mayor, not gehry.
Thanks for the correction.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.