"An Urban Odyssey" Continues to Resonate

The latest spotlight on my recently published remembrance, subtitled "A Critic's Search for the Soul of Cities and Self," exposes the elephant of Frank Gehry in the room that was L.A. Architecture.

Here is an excerpt of an abridged lead essay in the the prestigious "Common/Edge.org website entitled "The Art and Angst of Architecture in Southern California" in which I recall meeting Gehry some 40 years ago:

"I was predisposed to liking him. We both had grown up in modest circumstances, he in Toronto, me in Brooklyn, culturally but not religiously Jewish, and both our mothers were named Sadie, his coming from the possibly distant related Caplanaski clan, in Russia. Also into his second marriage, as I was, he had named a son, Sam. In addition, he had been described as a hustler, as I had been, and having worried at times in my youth in the Depression where the next meal was coming from, considered it an attribute. And we were both over-achievers.

It was therefore discouraging that Gehry at the first meeting was obsequious to a fault, the result of which I could not take most anything that he was saying as sincere; that he was in fact playing me, feeding me a mix of cliches and compliments. Noting my “welcomed” writing about the need for affordable housing, especially in minority neighborhoods, he confessed he was a socialist, too, wrongfully assuming so because of my concerns, as if that should label anyone other than a liberal.

Further to my rising displeasure, he played what I would call the infamous “Jew card;” that we as ever paranoid “landsmen” should bond together against “them.” And when I raised his name change, from Goldberg to Gehry, as being timorous, he said he did it at his first wife’s urging, who thought it would be good for business. This blaming of others, be it also a client or a colleague, I found to be another unappealing trait of Gehry’s when confronted for whatever faults or failures might be found in his designs. I came away from the meeting in distrusting him, which made me cautious viewing his projects in the future. And there were many…

"Gehry’s commissions increased considerably in the ’80s decade, with my liking some, and sometimes praising in my reviews, But I also took exception to others, and for that would be accused of heresy by his followers, who urged I be replaced by The Times with someone more sympathetic to Gehry’s artistry, and of course also theirs. Despite much acclaim and awards, fame, and fortune, Gehry never reacted well to criticism, however constructive and respectfully couched. Designs aside, I found him vain to the point of insufferable.

As a New York–based critic who asked me whether Gehry, the was always ill tempered, having been curtly put down by him when she questioned the context of one of his projects, I replied no. “Urban design is not Frank’s forte,” I answered in an email, adding his focus is usually on the buildings as objects rather than their contexts and users. “He might state otherwise, but you have to look at what Gehry the practicing architect does, not what Frank the celebrity architect says,” I added. “And beware, when praised he can be a warm puppy, when criticized a mad dog. Watch your hand.”

For more on Frank Gehry, and L.A. architecture, read on in Common Edge.org, a Not-For-Profit website dedicated to reconnecting architecture and design to the public.

And for more on my rollicking, candid bi-coastal odyssey, it is all in the book, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram the Academic Studies Press/ Cherry Orchard Books or ask for it at your local bookstore.