Old brick and Gehry

Grrr. I’ve been breathing fire all day. M and I went for a long walk on campus along the river, and I excised some of those demons in my blood today. We were noticing that the people who mow the campus lawns aren’t too careful around that Frank Gehry-designed building encased in shiny, silvery metal because the panels were all banged up and scratched close to ground level. The art museum on the campus of the U of Minnesota is very similar in appearance — ‘course that was also designed by Mr. Gehry around the same time.

M said she preferred the old buildings with character on the U of M campus to the modernistic Gehry design. I think there’s room for both type of buildings on campus. The problem with brick buildings is that they take about 50 years before they start looking cool. It takes decades to build up that patina. Old brick is a very cool looking material. But the titanium panels on these Gehry buildings looked cool the day they were finished building them. Would I want to work in one of these buildings? Maybe. Maybe not. But they’re great eye candy. Much more interesting to look at than your typical building.

I did most of my grad school studies up in Seashore Hall, which has that old brick character. Unfortunately, the building is also in the process of falling apart. They’re building a new journalism school over by the comm studies building now. How will it look when it’s done? The computer rendered drawings I’ve seen probably don’t do it justice.