From Preservation Online, the online magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

www.preservationonline.org

MIT Sues Gehry for "Design and Construction Failures"


Story by Margaret Foster / Nov. 7, 2007

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week filed a lawsuit against Frank Gehry's architecture firm, citing design flaws in its Stata Center, completed in 2004.

"I think the issues are fairly minor," Gehry told the New York Times. "MIT is after our insurance."

The suit says that the school in Cambridge, Mass., paid $1.5 million to repair the cracked walls of the amphitheater earlier this year. Gehry told the Times, "The client chose not to put certain devices on the roofs, to save money."

The $300 million Ray and Maria Stata Center was built on the site of a World War II-era timber-frame structure known as Building 20, which the school demolished in 1999. Meanwhile, some Brooklyn residents are still concerned about the scale of Gehry's Atlantic Yards project, which will impact the borough's historic brownstone neighborhoods.

Gehry has been compared to Frank Lloyd Wright, who, when a client complained that his new house's ceiling leaked water onto the dining room table, replied, "Move your chair."

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