Educational Post: Frank Gehry

What is wrong with these pictures?

























Do they look as if they belonged in an animated movie?
Well, they are actual building, actual practical buildings, that serve different purposes.

The first one on the left (my favorite) is called the Gehry Tower, located in Hannover, Germany. It is an office building, I think that it even houses some of the goverment offices, but I'm too lazy to look for the info right now... But, isn't the awesomest? Dang. I would love to design (and build!) a building like that. So sleek. So artsy. So daring.

The one on the right, and lower left, are two different angles of the same building, duh! Called The Dancing Building, it is in Prague, Czech Republic. It is a housing complex, as well as offices and a restaurant on the top. Pretty unique. Notice the windows, they are NOT leveled one with the other, one can only imagine how this building looks from the inside.

And, the last building, on the lower right, is The Stata Center, at Cambridge, Massachusets. Taken right out of the cartoons, right out from Dr. Caligari, from the wildest dreams... Although this building is used for science laboratories, I'm sure that it is a touristic attraction on its own. I guess lab people would care for the building better than normal tenants like you or me, but it would have been so awesome to live in this building... In any of them for that matter...

So, Joel, where did you find these wild buildings, and why have you posted about them? Well, the why is obvious, they are strange, beautiful buildings that make the surroundings, and skylines more memorable and pleasant to live in. And I found them while watching trailers in Apple.com/trailers. I happened to stumble upon this unamusing title: "Sketches of Frank Gehry", I clicked on it, and saw the trailer for this documentary... I was spellbound by this guy, architect, Frank Gehry. He does not draw well, but he has designed some of the most daring buildins in modern/postmodern/20th,21thcentury. I'm sad though that this documentary won't be shown in any theater, but, I guess I could find it later (if I still remember). Anyway, I just wanted to pinch you with an educational post for the mind. And to make you look for info (if you're interested at all in buildings, art, engineering or architecture) and be deligted by one of the most practical forms of art (if done by the right architects it is the best) which is architecture.

On another note, I like some documentaries, specially the ones that happen to get some showing in the big screen and some advertising... and there are, besides the one of Frank Gehry, two other significant ones:
An Inconvenient Truth, which talks about global warming, narrated by non-other than Al Gore, the almost president of the US. (this one, will be showed, surprisingly in Miramar, at Fine Arts, probably starts this next Thursday, 8th).
and
Who Killed the Electric Car?, which talks about the dismantling of an industry of very efficient electric cars that would have been one of the solutions for: gas prices and, yes, global warming.

and of course, I must mention, The Omen, and Disney/Pixar's: Cars. People have already told me The Omen is really really really good, and quote: "a real movie not just a ride". While Cars, is just Pixar, they wouldn't let u down...

Ok, done with education. Go party now. Shoo, shoo.

(pictures courtesy of Wikipedia)