3 Projects

Here's some brief information on three projects that landed in my inbox today:

First, a press release indicates that Steven Holl's design for the Knut Hamsun Museum in Norway will finally be built. Holl's design came way back in 1994 for a site above the Arctic Circle near the village of Presteid of Hamarøy, close to the farm where the writer Knut Hamsun grew up. The building is expected to be complete for the anniversary of Hamsun's birth in August 2009.



Second, reader Matous points me to a page that, although in Česky, appears to indicate that Future Systems is the winner of a competition for the New National Library of the Czech Republic. The design exhibits the British firm's usual blobby flair while also recalling their media pavilion at Lord's Cricket Ground.



Third and last is reader Nicole's gentle prodding for an opinion on Frank Gehry's design for the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute which broke ground last month in Las Vegas. I remember this project when it was made public last year; my reaction to the model images was one of "Oh, gee, another Gehry." What rightly concerns Nicole is this type of show-boating architecture being used for a place and organization "dedicated to the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS, and Memory Disorders."

With this goal in mind, the project recalls Gehry's Maggie Centre in Dundee, Scotland (intended to "help people with cancer, their carers, family and friends learn how to manage the physical and emotional impact of living with cancer") and his state-side Strata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences at MIT (home to the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, and the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy). But glancing at the Brain Institute's web page, it appears this project is more aligned with the Strata Center than Maggie Centre, as it focuses on research, as well as education, public policy, with some clinical services.

Does this excuse the "very Gehry" design as appropriate for the Institute? Looking at the interior model images, the character leans more towards a mall than a somber research facility, with ample attention given to the "Activities Center," a space suited to awards dinners and the like. This character might not be a bad thing, providing an uplifting environment to counter the activities within, as well as creating quasi-public spaces that foster interaction for a relatively large building. The same sort of thing happens at MIT -- successfully at that -- but many of the research spaces have provided unsuitable for the users (according to an old CBS news story I can't find a link to), who have had to modify the spaces to suit their work. On the other hand Maggie Centre has been praised for how it "works," perhaps due to its scale or its relatively subdued design. Let's hope Gehry can balance these two ends of his work in Las Vegas.