Architecture fans will take note of Frank Gehry’s lecture at the Corcoran Gallery of Art tonight at 5 p.m. Architecture fans who aren’t Corcoran members may balk at the hefty price—$50—and the patient can wait just a few more years for the anticipated Gehry façade being built for the Corcoran’s 17th Street and New York Avenue wing. District residents should get used to seeing him around.
His fame aside, DCist wonders if Gehry was the best choice for the Corcoran expansion. The common complaint from the architectural elite exactly follows Gehry’s acclaimed body of work: with city-defining works erected in Chicago, Seattle, and all over California—as well as a major Guggenheim expansion in the works for New York—Gehry’s signature style is quickly becoming synonymous for any architecture that isn’t neoclassical. While the Corcoran might not have been willing to give a less notorious architect the same free hand, DCist knows that the contemporary architecture bench isn’t one-deep. A principled stance against Gehryism might’ve even amounted to a commission that didn’t impose on the city’s architectural history and nuance.
(From DCist contributor Kriston Capps.)
