Frank Gehry, 80, Downsizes Office 50%

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The loss of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the Grand Avenue in Los Angeles forced Frank Gehry to make over 50% of his staff redundant.
Frank Gehry considers an accomplished past and uncertain future:

“I’ve had a disappointing year, couple of years, with Grand Avenue and Brooklyn,” he said in a wide-ranging conversation in his office last week in which he was by turns ruminative, weary and hopeful. “All my life I’ve wanted to do projects like that, and they never came to me. And then all of a sudden I had two of them. I invested the last five years in them, and they’re both stopped. So it leaves a very hollow feeling in your bones.”

For young architects, the way Gehry has organized his office and integrated new technology remains an inspiration. But for some of them, his recent work also represents the excesses of a decade that combined easy money and architectural celebrity. They are less interested in the bravura, photogenic icons that Gehry has lately produced — so-called signature buildings by a so-called starchitect — and more compelled by eco-friendly designs or anti-poverty efforts such as those aimed at providing affordable housing in rural areas. Other young architects are looking beyond the star model of architectural practice and toward communal, even anonymous, design initiatives.

Please find me architects who, taking Gehry work as a whole, believe that his work is an inspiration.