I’ve never understood the appeal among the art pundits for architect Frank Gehry’s style. 

I think his buildings are more like fruit wine hallucinations then daring expressions of form.  But I’ve always assumed that part of the appeal at least, was how he managed to do what he did, be so expressive in his way, and still make what must have been many extremely complex engineering problems all work out right. 

Well…as it turns out…maybe not so much…

MIT sues Gehry, citing leaks in $300m complex

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has filed a negligence suit against world-renowned architect Frank Gehry, charging that flaws in his design of the $300 million Stata Center in Cambridge, one of the most celebrated works of architecture unveiled in years, caused leaks to spring, masonry to crack, mold to grow, and drainage to back up.

The suit says that MIT paid Los Angeles-based Gehry Partners $15 million to design the Stata Center, which was hailed by critics as innovative and eye-catching with its unconventional walls and radical angles. But soon after its completion in spring 2004, the center’s outdoor amphitheater began to crack due to drainage problems, the suit says. Snow and ice cascaded dangerously from window boxes and other projecting roof areas, blocking emergency exits and damaging other parts of the building, according to the suit. Mold grew on the center’s brick exterior, the suit says, and there were persistent leaks throughout the building.

The suit says it cost MIT more than $1.5 million to hire another company to rebuild the amphitheater, with new bricks, seats, and a new drainage system.

The institute alleges that both Gehry Partners and the construction company, New Jersey-based Beacon Skanska Construction Company, now known as Skanska USA Building Inc., violated their contracts with MIT and are responsible for construction and design failures on the project. The 400,000-square-foot Ray and Maria Stata Center, on Vassar Street, also houses labs, offices, classrooms, and meeting rooms, and features a "street" that winds through the ground floor.

"Gehry breached its duties by providing deficient design services and drawings," says the suit, which was filed in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on Oct. 31 and seeks unspecified damages for costs and expenses incurred by MIT.

Gehry Partners did not respond to repeated calls and e-mail yesterday from the Globe. A spokesman for MIT declined to comment because of the pending lawsuit.

An executive at Skanska’s Boston office yesterday blamed Gehry for problems with the project and said Gehry ignored warnings from Skanska and a consulting company prior to construction that there were flaws in his design of the amphitheater.

"This is not a construction issue, never has been," said Paul Hewins, executive vice president and area general manager of Skanska USA. He said Gehry rejected Skanska’s formal request to create a design that included soft joints and a drainage system in the amphitheater, and "we were told to proceed with the original design."

After the amphitheater began cracking and flooding, Skanska spent "a few hundred thousand dollars" trying to resolve the problems, but, he said, "it was difficult to make the original design work."

I worked as an architectural modelmaker for much of the 1980s and I know the companies I freelanced during that time all had teams of engineers on staff whose only job was to pay attention to the environment a building exists in as much as the physics of keeping it standing up.  Snow loading, ice, rain, even nooks and crannys where birds might nest were all taken into account.  And I saw designers overruled time and again by the engineers over those issues.

After learning of the lawsuit yesterday, Silber said Gehry "thinks of himself as an artist, as a sculptor. But the trouble is you don’t live in a sculpture and users have to live in this building."

Oh bullshit.  The sculptor who doesn’t understand how marble or bronze behave, or whatever material it is they work in, is no artist.  Art is a step above craft, not below.  You cannot approach the vision in your mind, in your heart, if you are not a master of the materials you work in, or at least aspire to be.  You have to love your tools, and know them as well as you know your own hands.