Architect unveils 'comforting' Alzheimer's Institute design
Metal lattice described as metaphor for disease
Feb 12 , 2006 Review Journal :
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho...s/5842969.html
Let the armchair architects begin their critiques.
Architect Frank Gehry presented his much-anticipated design for the Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute on Saturday, revealing plans for a building officials hope will become a Las Vegas landmark and spur downtown's growth.The front of the institute, which will be the main entrance and heart of the treatment and research center, will be made of what look like large blocks of glass and stone stacked on one another. In addition to the research and treatment facilities, the institute will have offices for nonprofit organizations dedicated to studying Alzheimer's, Huntington's and other neurological diseases.
The back of the building, which will house a cafe, public space, and a museum dedicated to the brain, has a more striking design: a lattice of curving metal, framing glass panels.
"It's not only a metaphor of a brain, it's a metaphor of the disease we're trying to solve."
The design was unveiled at a news conference in the MGM Grand Conference Center.Gehry said it wasn't his intention to have the $60 million building look like a brain, though he agreed it does. Instead, the rolling lattice was meant to look like a blanket over a garden, reminiscent of the folds of a mother's arms where a baby is first placed after birth. He said it's an image used by artists for centuries.
"Metaphorically, it is a very comforting image," the 76-year-old architect said.
Not everyone agreed.
"It's a building I would love to go to, but I don't have dementia," said Janet White,
a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas School of Architecture. White has studied and designed facilities for Alzheimer's patients. After seeing images of the design, she worried that the building's rolling metal and irregularly placed blocks could be disorienting. "It's a beautiful composition. It will make for a very exciting building, but not for this purpose," White said.
She did praise the contrast between the solid blocks at the front of the building and the silver lattice at the back.
Gehry, known for his bold, nonlinear designs, said the design will work well for those who use the facility.
"People will drive up on the (front) side that will be calming," he said. "It will not scare off Alzheimer's patients."
While the interior has yet to be designed, Gehry said it would be practical and that doctors have consulted on the layout. The inside "won't be any more confusing than this room," he said.The 55,000-square-foot building will be the first on the city's Union Park property, 61 acres west of downtown that officials have dreamed would spur downtown's resurgence. A performing arts center -- the design of which is still a mystery -- will also be built on the site. The city is also considering condominiums, a casino and hotel, a baseball stadium and a new City Hall for the land. Some of Gehry's designs have become synonymous with the cities where they're located, so-called "postcard buildings" that become iconic representations of a place.
Gehry's thoughts on that possibility for the Alzheimer's clinicá "You can't predict it. So don't even go there," he said.
White said while architects and critics will applaud the building, it might be hard for the public to embrace it as a symbol of Las Vegas. "The design is so complex it's hard to see how it's reduced to an icon," she said. "An icon, by its very nature, is a simple but strong graphic statement."Ground will be broken on the building in August, with its opening scheduled for 2008, said Lynette Boggs McDonald, a county commissioner and president of Keep Memory Alive, the foundation behind the institute. Saturday evening, officials held their annual fundraiser for Keep Memory Alive, the foundation for the Lou Ruvo Alzheimer's Institute. Boggs McDonald said they hoped to raise between $6 million and $10 million.
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Great, now we have a brain disease magnified 1 million times and crawling on top of a building, and he calls this calming !?!
How is this going to make patients feel comfortable if it makes them feel disoriented with all the sharp and twisted edges?? I would develop a brain tumor just by looking at this building. Gehry is not designing for the need of the users, and he doesn't even care if the buildings provide function or how it makes people feel. He is designing buildings for this own ego by making buildings that are so ugly you simply can't miss it. A disgrace to the architects community.
Comforting? No. Unless his brain is infected with the disease and can't process the image.
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