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Academic Centers for Athletes Draw Donors
More than a dozen university athletics programs have added lavish new facilities in recent years, and academic-services budgets are soaring, a Chronicle survey finds. (Photograph courtesy of Texas A&M U.)
College Employees Value Campus Environment, Survey Finds
When a Chronicle survey asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list.
Rise in Tornadoes, Floods Poses Risk to Colleges
What if the sort of extreme weather that has left the University of Iowa inundated in floodwaters is not a freak event? What if it is a sign of things to come? (Photograph by AP Images)
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After Hurricane Gustav, Campuses Clean Up
Cleanup crews scoured Gulf Coast campuses, removing downed limbs and repairing broken windows, while students and staff members forced out by Hurricane Gustav waited for word that they could return.
Lessons From Katrina Improve Colleges' Evacuations for Hurricane Gustav
College officials across the Gulf Coast were cautiously relieved when initial reports suggested the damage wasn't severe.
College of Southern Idaho Cafeteria Goes 'Tray-Less'
Students are also wasting less food because they no longer have the option of overloading their cafeteria trays, says the college's food-services director.
New campus buildings
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A Green Building as a Billboard for Science
(A 2006 Chronicle video)
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Buildings & Grounds is written by Scott Carlson (left) and Lawrence Biemiller (right). Scott Carlson writes about architecture, facilties, energy, and sustainability, among other topics. Lawrence Biemiller writes about architecture and facilities and contributes to Notes from Academe. What's happening on your campus? Let us know.
MIT Sues Frank Gehry Over Problems With Stata Center Design
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has quietly filed a lawsuit against Frank Gehry, the high-profile architect, alleging that flaws in his design for MIT’s huge Ray and Maria Stata Center (right) caused leaks that cost more than $1.5-million to fix.
The lawsuit, described this morning in The Boston Globe, was filed October 31 against both Mr. Gehry’s firm, Gehry Partners, and Skanska USA Building Inc., the contractor for the $300-million Stata Center project. MIT says problems with the design of the center’s amphitheater led to cracking, flooding, and other difficulties, and that MIT had to bring in another company to make repairs. The amphitheater was eventually rebuilt with a new drainage system. The suit also says the Stata Center developed persistent leaks, and that mold grew on its exterior bricks.
The suit says Gehry Partners “breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings,” and it asks the Suffolk County Superior Court, in Boston, to order the firm to pay MIT’s expenses as well as an unspecified amount in damages. Neither Mr. Gehry’s firm nor MIT would comment on the suit, but a spokesman for Skanska said the Gehry firm had ignored repeated warnings about the amphitheater design.
It’s not unusual for universities to encounter problems with buildings that have unusual designs, as Mr. Gehry’s certainly do — the original roofs that Jefferson designed for students’ rooms at the University of Virginia, for instance, had to be replaced because they leaked. But it is rare that disagreements continue to the point at which lawsuits are filed — particularly lawsuits involving architects as prominent as Mr. Gehry and institutions as well known as MIT.
Mr. Gehry’s critics have long said that his vision surpassed both the technology available to build what he drew and the size of his clients’ bank accounts. His 1986 computer-science and engineering complex at the University of California at Irvine leaked so badly that the university tore in down in January, even though it was one of the most highly praised campus buildings of its decade. And his building for Case Western University’s Weatherhead School of Management cost more than double what the university had expected (The Chronicle, January 6, 2001).
Lawrence Biemiller | Tuesday November 6, 2007 | Permalink | Contact usComments
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I had the unpleasant experience of (trying) to work in several Frank Gehry designed buildings in Los Angeles, so I am not surprised by this turn of events. Seemingly, every building he is noted for has major design/material flaws (Bilboa). I shake my head wondering how he won a Pritzker Prize. Whatever happened to functionality? Shouldn’t that be considered when evaluating design? Seems modern architecture is so caught up in itself nothing else matters. What is really odd (to me, at least) is why MIT or anyone else would hire him to design anything, given past problems with his buildings. Does everyone in the architecture world have a few lost bolts??
— Elka Tenner Nov 6, 03:56 PM #
I had the good fortune of not using Frank Gehry on a building a number of years ago although the faculty were enamoured with Mr. Gehry. He was difficult to work with and demaded a fee that was way off the scale.
— wayne kennedy Nov 6, 04:24 PM #
It’s karma. By choosing to build a hideous Frank Gehry-designed facility, MIT had it coming. I mean, was MIT on a collective LSD trip when this building was approved?
— JDC Nov 6, 04:48 PM #
What about the cost overruns at Millennium Park in Chicago for “The Pritzker Pavillion.”
— JHB Nov 6, 05:19 PM #
I’m a professor here at MIT, and I must admit that, despite all of the flaws in Gehry’s Stata Center, the building always makes me smile. Yes, it incorporates huge areas of wasted space. Yes, there are hideous traffic flow issues. I dare you to try to find a room there without consulting the help desk. (Forget a building map; even computer technology is not yet advanced enough to map its four-dimensional interior). Yes, the building is for all practical purposes un-useable.
But that skyline! It’s Fritz Lang’s Metropolis meets Dr. Seuss, gently laced with psilocybin. It is a return to the days when the wall of a building actually was something other than a large, blank concrete face dotted with a few un-openable windows. When I walk home at 10 or 11 p.m. (because no untenured faculty leaves at 6) I see that glorious, crazy, inspiring skyline, and I want to laugh. When I stagger back into campus at 6 a.m. (on a Sunday) I feel momentarily revitalized. There IS joy in the world. (Just not in my world.)
For there are nooks and crannies therein, my friends! There are curiosities and peculiarities galore. There are oddities and wonders. And, yes, there are moments, brief moments, of outright insanity. The building, in short, is humanity—real, unworkable, fantastical humanity.
Every other modern building on the MIT campus is grim. Monotonous monstrosities of high cheap modernism. Almost unbearable, with their bad air, bad lighting, idiotic stairwell design, ugly offices, tortuous classrooms. The MIT campus as a whole stands as a glaring beacon, warning: “do not let engineers make aesthetic decisions! You will suffer for decades…”
Yes, architecture died with the heirs of the Bauhaus, devolving into mere construction (cheapest possible slap-up of concrete or glass) or degenerating into expensive grandiose, esoteric statements of pure ego. (“Behold my return to the gentle curve of the egg!”)
The Stata Center, well, that is something else entirely. Call it, call it… call it whimsy.
— d Nov 6, 05:38 PM #
MIT is a serious institution, not the site of a Tim Burton movie. “Whimsy” has no place at MIT, and now they’re paying for it.
— CA123 Nov 6, 05:46 PM #
Death Penalty For:
Murder
Rape
Treason
Bad Architecture
— marci Nov 6, 05:53 PM #
Since the Stata Center opened, I’ve been reading news stories that expound the virtues of the building. As a resident of the building since its opening, I’d like those same writers to spend some time in the builiding, try to get some work done, and rewrite their stories. I think the new versions would be vastly diffferent from their initial impressions.
— -j Nov 6, 09:04 PM #
I am an architectural historian who researches Gehry’s work. His buildings inspire, entertain and generally breathe humanity back into architecture. They are also site specific and reference the nature and history of the tasks involved. Granted these wonderful traits are not always obvious to the architecturally unaware, but he, more than any other architect today, marries his buildings to the site and program.
Almost singelhendedly, he has issued a mandate to architects everywhere to become more creative and engaged in restoring awe to architecture. His works, beginning with the Bilabao, have created the current architectural renaissance. Ask the Basques about ecomomic virtues of having a Gehry building in town. I recommend that the institution just fix the problems (has anyone heard of Frank Lloyd right and his flat roofs?) and continue working in a landmark, historic building with futuristic design. In twenty years, the building will be likely considered a national treasure.
Or, if we chose to, we could ignore brilliance in architecture (and architectural pedagogy) and remain enveloped on a daily basis with dead, dull, poorly rendered white cubes (after Le Corbusier, and Mies, there were few who could pull it off properly) or worse, remain working in inhumane metallic skyscrapers that foster the feeling of living inside a machine. Don’t we prefer vision, spirit, energy and just plain old creativity? I hate to say this, but these buildings play better in Europe where there is a developed taste for more creative projects. Sad.
By the way, don’t foget that it may also be found that Gehry’s design, being so innovative is just ahead of the construction curve. By this I mean that construction processes may have to catch up to the extreme creative components of his design, even though he is using highly sophisticated aerospace software for creation, engineering and manufacturing. He is not responsible for the final construction, the company executing it is.
Since this is a highly educated audience, where are the kudos for genius?
— irene Nov 6, 09:12 PM #
Kudos to MIT for proclaiming, the Emperor has no clothes! I have seen many of Mr. Gehry’s designs, and have often wondered if his schematic plans were sketched on pre-school writing pads while he snacked on PBJs atop an Alice in Wonderland tea table garbed in Tinker Bell’s wardrobe. His LA-la-land projects may make us smile, but $1.5 million of leaks, mold, mildew, blocked emergency exits are no laughing matter. I am certain the R&D labs would like to put that money to better use!
— Victoria Nov 7, 03:11 AM #
By MIT’s legal actions they have shown that they really should not have hired Frank Gehry in the first place and should have just built another box like the rest of the buildings on that campus.
Those that are jumping on the cut-down Gehry bandwagon are simply showing their ignorance of what was actually accomplished here. I have seen many of Gehry’s buildings from the Guggenheim in Bilbao to the Disney Concert Hall in LA to the Millinium Park in Chicago and many of the others inbetween and I have to say that they are the closest thing to actual art in architecture… but also function very well for the use they were designed for.
Those that are complaining about this building, show a lack of understanding and are more interested in following the status quo much like the typical complaint of how my kid could paint the scribblings of a Picasso or a Pollack…the simple truth is…your kids can’t paint a Picasso or a Pollock…and you’re not even enjoying or compehending the beauty and art that stand before you in this building.
Yes the envelope has been pushed here and sometimes when that happens there may be a few leaks… but trying to make an extra buck off a situation like this is truly dishartening…especially when it is coming form a major institution like MIT.
— Ken Nov 7, 03:53 AM #
Surely in a technically brilliant institution like MIT there was an engineering professor (or even an engineering student) that could have told them this was a brittle building?
How could this possibly be a surprise to anyone?
— John Nov 7, 07:01 AM #
I wonder what the Stata’s think about all of this; what other donors and potential donors think about this. $300M buildings are built on the shoulders of these donors and if they get the impression that things aren’t being run well – well you get the picture.
— Michael Hanna Nov 7, 10:10 AM #
Is it impossible to have a creative, even whimsical architectural design that is also functional? Is it not possible for Gehry to step down from his ego and own up to the flaws and—fix them? I think all MIT wants is for him to take responsibility for paying for the fixes. That will make it much easier for MIT to go on appreciating the whimsical design.
— S Nov 7, 10:18 AM #
It’s a case of function follows form approach. They got what they deserved.
— Jeff B Nov 7, 11:31 AM #
Truly great architecture not only lifts the spirit and brings joy to those who see it, it also FUNCTIONS.
— dlm Nov 7, 04:20 PM #
“Death penalty for bad architecture”? And who is the judge and jury? Puh-lease. As for whether it’s good architecture or not is a matter of taste. Whether he is a good architect is a matter of fact. A good architect recognizes that the profession is a SERVICE profession, and thus you must provide a service to your client. I have yet to meet a client that appreciates having a technically flawed, double the budget building all for the sake of aesthetics and the architect’s ego. This type of “my design architecture” mentality continues to feed the public stereotype of the egocentric architect that plagues our profession. Thank you Mr. Gehry for continuing to fuel the stereotype (sarcasm). In terms of our profession, with friends like you who needs enemies?
— Ron Nov 8, 12:48 PM #
sounds like a lot of jealous architects posting here
— hoy Nov 9, 02:03 PM #
I have worked for nearly 15 years in a Frank Gehry designed building, the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota where I am the director. I love our building. It sends a message to students, I believe, that art is right in the middle of your lives and you have to deal with it. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t ignore it.
And, our building functions beautifully. Its layout is wonderful, it is a great place to show art, to look at art, and to work. It gives me energy to work in this building.
We have had none of the kinds of problems mentioned with the Stata Building. A landmark building doesn’t have to be non-functional or dis-functional. From my experience, what makes our building work so well for its purpose is the strong collaboration our staff had with Frank Gehry and his partners. We knew what we wanted and we looked very carefully at the design at every stage. We paid close attention to the design and the budget. We never felt resistance from the Gehry office to stay within our budget or to make design changes that would make our building more functional. At the same time, we respected the design. We worked together to make sure that function and design were both respected. I have always felt that if our building didn’t work well, it would be as much our fault as the architect’s. Designing a building is not something an architect does alone—it is a collaborative process. I am firmly convinced that one of the reasons we are so happy with our building is that we had not only a great architect, but that we were a good client.
— Lyndel King Nov 9, 02:30 PM #