Starchitects have long been the coveted designers of big new buildings””the Museum of Modern Art extension, the new Salt Lake City library, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco””but in recent months, the names of A-list designers such as Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, and Charles Gwathmey have figured prominently in advertisements for high-end residential properties...
Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Frank Gehry, and Herzog & De Meuron, who generally design cultural monuments, are all building luxury condominiums. From a developer's point of view, employing a famous architect is not only about adding design value, it's also about adding name recognition. In that sense, starchitects are transforming themselves from individual luminaries to companies bent on extending brand recognition throughout the world. The question, of course, is how much value a big-name architect actually adds to a real-estate project, and how architects became brands in the first place. Slate