My recent
quest for inspiration brought me to the surrealist exhibit at the newly-refurbished art gallery. At first glance this
building seems too tame to really be a "Gehry building", he merely added a glass facade to the existing building...


...
BUT after absorbing it with the artwork and the city, I decided this gallery is well-executed and very appropriate. Considering the surrounding environment; Gehry designed accordingly.
Context first. Shock value second. Shouldn't all design strive for this?
compare to these somewhat recent Toronto structures:
Libeskind's crystal aka the ROM
and Alsop's table which houses OCAD (art school)...
Gehry marries the old and new buildings harmoniously and effortlessly. In contrast, Libeskind seems to have arbitrarily smashed his creation into the old museum and Alsop's looks like a UFO just landed ...
For a mild Canadian city, do we need such flamboyant cries for attention? They stand out in Toronto like newly-sprouted pimples. Though the latter two are bold in form, Gehry's gallery trumps in function. He most definitely is a
genius.