A sketch for Daniel Libeskind’s addition to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. Image: torontohispano.com
In the current issue of Nuvo magazine, the 80-year-old grande dame of architecture, Phyllis Lambert (C.C., G.O.Q., M.Arch., O.A.L., F.R.A.I.C., F.R.S.C., R.C.A., LL.D), founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, former Bronfman and early Mies van der Rohe champion, calls ’starchitect’ Frank Gehry seriously overrated.
(The Art Gallery of Ontario has just spent $254 million on a Gehry-designed addition)
Lambert calls Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin “appalling”. “I don’t know why the ROM would get Libeskind - he has done so very little. It’s all about ego. I think it’s crazy.”
Who does Lambert rate? Well, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, for one. And American Peter Eisenman.
Rem Koolhaas, Rendering of Central Chinese Television Tower, Beijing. Image: thecityreview.com
As for the best Canadian architect? “Lambert answers with one word: “Arthur.”"
She’s referring to Arthur Erickson, and VoCA agrees. See our post HERE.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...
1 comment so far ↓
I am a huge fan of the CCA (love those archives), but the institution is definitely not outside the “architectural celebrity” loop. Libeskind certainly hasn’t built much (and perhaps he is overcompensating for that now), but his Jewish Museum is much better conceived than some of the early OMA/Koolhaas work.
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