Special Exhibitions
Challenging Structure: Frank Gehry’s Peter B. Lewis Building
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Special Exhibitions |
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Challenging Structure: Frank Gehry’s Peter B. Lewis Building |
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Read CMA Members Magazine Article Challenging Structure: Frank Gehry's Peter B. Lewis BuildingOctober 6, 2002 - February 24, 2003 When Case Western Reserve University officials sought the architect to design a new building for the Weatherhead School of Management, they looked for dynamism and innovation: qualities the school hopes to foster in its students. In selecting Frank Gehry, the University chose one of the world's most celebrated architects, the subject of numerous international exhibitions, extravagant praise and sometimes stinging criticism. Gehry has said that building in Cleveland excited him because there is "a need, a passion finally to make something special." Challenging Structure: Frank Gehry's Peter B. Lewis Building invites Museum visitors to experience Gehry's design process for the provocative Weatherhead School, from conceptualization to construction. This exhibition includes the original photograph of an Arizona canyon that inspired the structure's interior, early sketches and plans as well as a demonstration of CATIA, the computer software that enables Gehry's unorthodox designs to be built. Challenging Structure also includes more than 40 building models Gehry developed with his studio and the staff and students of the Weatherhead School. The Peter B. Lewis Weatherhead School of Management, named for its principal benefactor, comprises more than 60,000 square feet of curving surfaces and a 370-ton steel structure. Gehry's innovative form, now perched dream-like over the University Circle landscape, may hold an inspirational function for students and faculty. The models and plans on view demonstrate how the architect's process is one of constant evolution and change. Using wooden blocks on a foam foundation, Gehry worked with school representatives to determine the overall parameters of the building. These moveable blocks allowed spaces to be configured and re-configured in the early stages of the design process. Then, the so-called "massing models" of what might become the actual building were constructed out of paper, cardboard, foam and wood. Massing models evolved into more fully finished programming models and design process models. These developed into studies of interior spaces and final models of the structure in its surroundings. In Challenging Structure visitors see how models become part of a larger process, used by Gehry to envision what the building could be, as well as tools to convey his vision to others. The early models, like a stenographer's shorthand, communicate in a coded language specific to the building process. Twisted pieces of paper become classroom spaces and foam blocks become brick walls. According to Gehry, "It's only if you follow and hold the dream in your head and play with the models and keep going back to reality in the end you get it." Gehry is often associated as much with art world ideas as he is with architecture, and has developed working relationships with many contemporary artists including Ed Ruscha and Claes Oldenburg. Artist Richard Serra has said of art-lover Gehry, "One of his greatest achievements is to collect the history of contemporary art and with an unabashed wit, cunning and playfulness make it his own vocabulary." It is only fitting, then that Gehry's working process as both an architect and an artist should be displayed at The Cleveland Museum of Art. A work of inspirational architecture that challenges structure as well as convention, the latest addition to the Gehry pantheon has already impressively altered Cleveland's architectural landscape. Challenging Structure fosters dialogue on how this strikingly different building will affect the human landscape as well. Cathleen Chaffee Curatorial Assistant, Contemporary Art Page 4 of 5 -- Credits |
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