Ever since the completion of Frank O. Gehry's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain in 1997, the world has been clamoring for shiny metal buildings with sinuous curves.
For a while afterwards, the museum planned a similar, large, spectacular structure by Gehry along the FDR Drive south of the South Street Seaport, but unfortunately it could not raise the funds.
Gehry also lost out in a design competition for a new tower for The New York Times on the West Side but eventually was commissioned by Barry Diller to build a modest office building on West Street in Chelsea for his IAC company. That very attractive project reflected the nautical heritage of the Hudson River with its sail-like shape, but the façade was glass, not metal.
Finally, Forest City Ratner commissioned Gehry to design two metallic projects in New York City: a very tall, mixed-use tower near City Hall at 8 Beekman Street and an enormous but lower project in the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn.
The Beekman tower, which will contain a school and about 900 rental apartments, will be taller than the Woolworth Building on the other side of City Hall Park but its greater claim to fame will probably be that its entire façade above the school will be stainless steel and that it is likely to out-dazzle the Chrysler Building, the city's most famous and romantic stainless-steel pinnacle.
The Beekman project's reflections are greatly enhanced by the fact that its facades ripple with subtle, seemingly random curves.
The fiscal crisis, however, got Gehry recently kicked off the Atlantic Yards project as the developer hoped to save $200 million with a less expensive and non-stainless-steel design by lesser-known architects. The surprise decision smacked of bait-and-switch but Gehry's design was not as fine as his metal designs at Bilbao, Beekman Street or the impressive Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.
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