CNU awards Gehry. Surely a jest

"Continuing its policy of embracing what works,
the CNU gave an urban design award to Frank Gehry."

Huh? Embracing what works? Embracing what works to get media ink, yes. Otherwise the suggestion is puzzling, at least. Gehry produces dramatic bread-and-circuses which divert attention and lead to no socially useful (or even interesting) discussion, which is exactly what a precious object is supposed to do: impress the wealth and power of the owner on the viewer. There is little to nothing one can learn from Gehry which isrepeatable -- there will never be a "school of Gehry" -- except that gimmickry sells and that if you want to be noticed do something freakish. And Gehry's very good at doing all that. So an architecture award, maybe. But an urban design award? Gehry is not about urban design so far as I can detect. Sounds weird.

But there are some bright people at CNU (Congress for the New Urbanism) so I'd like to understand their rationale -- the public one and the private one -- before I laugh too loud. And if I hear a good reason I will be happy to change my mind. And I will do so in public. But awarding Gehry for urban design strikes me initially as preposterous, pandering and a bit embarrassing (for CNU). Just go walk around Disney Hall and tell me if you think it deserves an urban design award. Of course maybe if your standard is Brasilia...

Now I can conjur up some sort of remote (and inaccurate) Time-magazine-level thinking such as "Gehry turns people's attentions back to the city." Now that's simply not so, of course -- Gehry does no such thing -- and if "city promotion" was the standard for an urban design award then Starbucks is far more worthy of an award.

Anyone have an insight into what CNU was doing? Even merely the story for public consumption? Just playing some obscure politics? Setting things up to ask Gehry to join the Board? Now that last might be a brilliant step. The cold, hard reality is that a great number of people think that Gehry is a big deal so having him on the CNU Board might well be a shrewd move. I am genuinely curious.

Now there is a definitely a possibility of pedestrian-oriented starchitecture. I have written on this possibility (Can a starchitect be a good urbanist?) and it is a very real one and it would be a very fine thing to see. But Gehry doesn't do pedestrian-oriented starchitecture. Maybe he could if any client had the gumption to demand it. But he hasn't (at least I don't think he has -- correct me if I am wrong) so I am mystified as to why he would deserve an urban design award. Urban design is about the sidewalk and, metonymically speaking, Frank Gehry takes a limousine into the underground parking garage (which may be the reason behind the excellence of the parking garage at Disney Hall, which excellence I noted in this blog last year, here: Disney Hall: The Good, The Bad and...the Beautiful?)

•••

Does anyone know anything about this award? The source of the information has commented here on this blog but has provided no more suggestion, elaboration, report, surmise, guess, conjecture about why CNU would do something so seemingly odd -- except that CNU likes to "embrace what works" which seem to be a pretty empty criterion (without some refinement). It would allow awards to the designers of a Wal-Mart. Google has nothing on the award. No announcement on the CNU site. Was the award privately bestowed?

Comments

[Tom DC/VA]

"Gehry produces bread-and-circuses which divert attention."

Amen.

[john massengale]

David,

What Gehry have you been to see?

Gehry's a very different beast than Koolhaas.

John

[David Sucher]

Yes, John, and I blogged about my visit: Disney Hall: The Good, The Bad and...the Beautiful?

[john massengale]

I went to Disney Hall last night. The urbanism was pretty bad. But you can't generalize from just one building. Bilbao is a great civic monument.

[David Sucher]

And that's why, John, I suggest the possibility that CNU's award is defensible. But the burden of persuasion is on CNU to show by some clear and convincing evidence -- not a faith-based assertion -- that Gehry is worthy.

As to Bailbao being a "great civic monument"...that may well be so; I haven't ben there and so I have no opinion. But a "great civic monument" is not the same as good urban design.

To a larger issue: is there anything to learn from Gehry? Are there any general rules which one can tease out from his work? Rules, ideas, thoughts, concepts, principles etc etc which might inform other projects? I doubt it but maybe the CNU award rationale will suggest something.

[miss representation]

I've been to Disney, Santa Monica Plaza, the MLPS musuem, the Aerospace musuem (forget the official name, and the one with the plane glued to the side). None were exception urban events. The buildings that might stand in opposition to this conclusion are often the result external restrictions that do not buckle under big name weight (I do believe I've been past the American Center, but it's a vague memory), and thus I can't see what the logic is here. Campuses in many ways shouldn't be thought of urban in the traditional sense (mostly because the finances that undergird them are impractical for large scale planning), and producing a number of notable campus baubles does not make a good planner. Aside from Bilbao, John, can you think of a project of his that was a catalyst for, or simply a positive addition to an urban environment (or been to one, since I suspect you been to more of his projects than David or I)?

[Michael Blowhard]

I've been to a lot of American Gehry. I sort of like some of it, as art-games and mischievous sculpture, especially the early stuff. And in an LA context a lot of it doesnt bug me -- LA's a big parking lot anyway. But as urbanism? I can't see that.

[payton chung]

For the record, the Civic Art awards were granted by the CNU XIII Pasadena Local Host Committee, not by CNU itself. Hope that clears things up a little bit.
.pc

[David Sucher]

Payton,
No it doesn't really help very much. Only people who treats CNU the way people at State used to view the Kremlin could notice much less appreciate the difference. I don't fall into that category. Massengale, a CNU ancient, said "the CNU gave an urban design award to Frank Gehry" so I assumed he meant CNU not some obscure portion of CNU with plausible deniability. The very fact that you take the trouble to share the distinction speaks volumes and is reassuring.
At any rate, what is the scoop? i.e. Why did even the local chapter think he deserves an "urban design" award? Luckily for CNU the award seems to have been pretty-much ignored -- nothing in Google News. But to those who follow these things it seems to be an astonishing gesture. You do realize that there seems to be a shroud of silence about this issue: nothing on the CNU site and no response -- I have asked -- from people in Pasadena in a position to explain. Maybe cooler heads have prevailed and they will even ask Gehry's office to return the award?

[David Sucher]

Oh and I forgot. Of course I have been to the exterior of Gehry's Rock and Roll Museum here in Seattle. (Never been inside.) It's a fair "precious object," so far as precious objects go but it misses the mark as urban design. A very few changes and the Museum would have been fairly decent but streetscape is not what Gehry is about, so it seems.

[Hal O'Brien]

Michael: Most of LA is a parking lot, but there are certainly urban bits scattered about. Old Town and Lake Ave in Pasadena; Santa Monica's downtown; Long Beach's ditto; the Plaza area in Orange; etc. Most of these areas are pre-WWII -- as Reyner Banham points out, LA is as spread out as it is because of the old rancho system, and one sees a palimpsest of transportation networks growing up ever after.

The real problem in making a generalization about Greater LA is that it's larger in area than Belgium, and has a larger population. (I'm defining LA here at the border of where people live and then commute into the city for work, an economic definition. Looked at that way, you're talking Ventura to Palmdale to Victorville to Banning to Temecula to Oceanside [going clockwise from the West].)

I agree wholeheartedly that Gehry hasn't contributed much to urbanism as a practical matter. But he's perceived as the home-town boy, so this whole local chapter aspect might well be an influence.

[James]

This does seem ridiculous in light of his recent work. The only Gehry project that I can think of that is pedestrian oriented is his 1984-1988 Edgemar project (http://www.edgemar.com/) in Santa Monica, CA. While I do like Edgemar because it IS somewhat pedestrian oriented and preserved many existing structures on the site, it still isn't an amazing piece of urban design. His recent large scale work is not even in the same category. Objects in the city do not make great urban design...

[payton chung]

Nothing on the CNU site yet because we are rushing to put together a post-Congress package, including speakers' presentations. Keep in mind that CNU's communications staff is maybe 1.25 people (the .25 is me), and that we're generally exhausted from the entire event. Speaking for myself, I spent the "Civic Art Awards" ceremony sitting downstairs in a half-asleep haze, minding a de facto coat check.

I have no idea (but I will find out) whether the notion of the LHC giving awards was approved by the CNU board. If so (and the Charter Awards juries are approved by the board annually), then you could make that assertion. I know that these are minute distinctions that only bureaucrats like me care about, but please do NOT say that "CNU awards Gehry." Technicalities are still facts, and that is factually incorrect. Plus, this has further resonance since some of our chapters have begun giving awards, and those are also not directly sanctioned by the national organization and thus could cause similar confusion.
.pc

[payton chung]

What I had heard, and again these are my opinions and retellings and not CNU's, is that the Local Host Committee (in which Moule & Polyzoides played a heavy role) did at some point vote on the award recipients. Again, I will try to find out more about the hows and whys of this process, but it has been completely opaque to me.
.pc

[David Sucher]

I have been forwarded a posting from the "Pro-Urb" list. It written by one of the core founders of CNU -- Stefanos Polyzoides. It says quite explicitly:

"The local CNU Host Committee, with the blessing of the national Board, gave Frank Gehry a Civic Art Award for his LA Philharmonic Building." (italics added)

Indeed, I have been directed to the national CNU by a local host committee rep to whom I had just been directed by national CNU spokesperson i.e. no one really wants to talk about this award, which I think shows the sort of common-sense I expect from CNU. The award was clearly a blunder and appears from the Pro-Urb posting to be supported by a very weak reed of justification. Maybe this is another case -- Watergate days again! -- in which no one will admit having voted for Nixon.