A Frank Gehry Campus Design T

This paper will discuss architect Frank O. Gehry's design of the campus for the Law School of Loyola Marymount University near downtown Los Angeles. The paper will also explore how the architect constructed the campus to fit in with the urban fabric of Los Angeles and explain Gehry's theory of urbanism. The discussion will explain how the architect's design achieved specific practical and aesthetical goals and will also summarize and identify the architect's main design theories for the law school campus. The paper will also outline the different phases of construction which Frank O. Gehry and an associated architectural firm completed for the law school.

Architect Frank O. Gehry's campus-like design of the Law School of Loyola Marymount University has been called "his finest work yet" (Goldberger, 1985, p. 55). While designing the new campus for the law school, Gehry was concerned with creating something which incorporated "traditional urbanistic norms" (Scully, 1988, p. 271). In other words, the architect wanted to build something which was not out of context with the surrounding urban environment, but rather blended in with the drab and nondescript commercial buildings which line the side of the law school facing the vehicle traffic on Olympic Boulevard. The law school's faculty members had also expressed their hope that the new buildings would look permanent and incorporate some symbolic references to the history and traditions of law (Gehry, 1985, p. 220).

Related Essays

Comparing Architectural Styles .... edifices than the Le Corbusier designed Villa Savoye (1927), Poissy, France, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed by Frank Gehry (1997) (See .... (1704 7 )

Gehry Disney Music Center .... Conceived as an Eiffel Tower for a city without a center by architectural master Frank Gehry, if built as planned the massive structure will add the pizzazz of .... (4209 17 )

Examples of Use of Computers for Architecture .... Conceived as an Eiffel Tower for a city without a center by architectural master Frank Gehry, if built as planned the massive structure will add the pizzazz of .... (4231 17 )

The Coca-Cola Company .... "Coca-Cola touches every aspect of American life, from the beginning to the present," explained world-famous architect Frank Gehry who has been commissioned to .... (4501 18 )

3 Architectural Theories .... to break and even splinter the rational geometry of classic Modern Movement orthodoxy."[xxx] Deconstructionism, evident in the work of Frank Gehry, as well .... (3615 14 )

rooms and administrative offices on the second floor, and the faculty offices on the third and fourth floors (Goldberger, 1985, pp. 46-55). The side of the Burns building which faces Valencia Street is painted gray. Gehry intentionally made the street side of the Burns building very plain because he did not want to "upstage the neighborhood or the [nearby] Martin Building" (Gehry, 1985, p. 13), which includes a few semi-dilapidated, turn-of-the-century houses mixed together with large rectangular, decaying apartment buildings and banal industrial warehouse-like structures. In Phase II of the program, three separate, simple wood-framed buildings were constructed to house classrooms which would seat 80 to 120 students. A small non-denominational chapel was also built during this phase. The tower of the chapel (as well as the over-scaled columns in front of the moot court building) were specifically designed to evoke rather than imitate classical monuments. Gehry thereby helped achieve the faculty's goal of building a campus that somehow made reference to the traditions and history of law. Also, Gehry designed the campus to look like a modern acropolis or Roman Forum, which coincidentally meshed with the law school faculty's

Category: Arts - A