From Homage to Sacrilege
Frank Gehry’s UTS
August 2015
Transcript of Video
According to legend, Pritzker winning architect Frank Gehry became mesmerised here in Sydney by its sandstone; its colour, texture and splendour. For here, in the city, despite being critically endangered by commercial and government greed, Colonial Architect Jame’s Barnet’s vision of Classical genius stands, a testament to pride. And so, the legend continues, Frank Gehry went away to sculpt his brown paper bags, but, despite being handed AUD$180 Million, this new civic institution could not afford sandstone and so, he proposed this hommage in brick.
It is in some ways difficult to assess or indeed logically understand how one serves as the inspiration for the other. To quote Shakespeare, it conjures up what we might lament as “heavy lightness, serious vanity, misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms.” Whilst its exterior is different and a momentary crowd pleaser if we accept that paying homage through innovation merely means merely ‘difference’ and ‘expensive’, then architecture has genuinely been lost to the dark side. Despite being inspired by the Classicism of Sydney, it seems that Gehry opted to ignore the arcades and colonnades of these civic buildings, refusing to allow his brick to open to the promenade in a welcoming and invitational gesture, opting instead for a cold, heartless, sharp edge from every entrance.
Penetrating this icy barrier, what we can then find is another self-styled object of innovation, a stainless steel staircase. But it is here that the innovation disappears. In its place, is a rectilinear service core, his wavy walls hiding the same rectilinear programs, and students are safely hidden away in the comfort of independent rectangular air-conditioned study rooms, without need for natural sun or a light spring breeze. The architecture Gehry delivers thus fails to genuinely innovate space. It fails to challenge how students learn and engage together in the ever changing 21st century socio-economic fabric. Lacking any experiential substance, what the building has delivered is a new mask to disguise 19th century class rooms clustered around a centralised oval shaped Victorian panopticon theatre in a masterful illusion of visual complexity and under the guise of innovation.
The underlying question here is not whether the building should have been square, but rather, raises the question of what actually constitute to be good architecture. If we consider the building as a commodified object, then it could not have been more successful. UTS’ fear of not being perceived as revolutionary and interesting has been safely masked by Gehry’s iconic waves, complete with an AUD$180 million price tag. What we have so far seen in the commodified capitalist 21st century world, architecture has been lost to the allure of the Gehry ‘brand’, and, as Carrie Bradshaw puts it to us in sex and the city, the choice is between labels, and love…
Whilst this celebration of the superfluous may in fact be unintentionally symbolic for a school of business, it does little to further the dignity of meaningful, substantial architecture. If we can instead try to accept that architecture possesses a significant role beyond merely pleasing corporate clients and brand making, then the Gehry building represents not a step forward for innovation in architecture, but a sorely missed opportunity. What is being neglected is an understanding of the civic role which an education building, located in the heart of our city, plays in the stitching and weaving of the urban fabric.
If we cannot take anything positive from Gehry’s paper bag, then at least we can pass by Ultimo and reminisce over the mistakes of Gehry’s architecture:
- Complexity for the sake of complexity does not equate to innovation
- Architecture is about spatial experience, not mere intrigue
- Architecture possesses a civic role and should address the city meaningfully.
Set alongside this melancholy story of Australia’s sacrilegious sculpture, now sadly cemented into Ultimo’s urban fabric, I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hopes were high and architecture had civility, I dreamed that good architecture would never die, and that Frank Gehry would be more forgiving…