Why Frank Gehry?

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-et-la-river-notebook-20150809-story.html#page=1

The L.A. River through Downtown Los Angeles
en.wikipedi.org

Hello Everyone:

Frustration reigns supreme today in the blogosphere.  The WiFi gremlins seem to be getting the better of yours truly.  Nevertheless, your intrepid blogger will ford ahead with today's follow up post on architect Frank Gehry's plans to revitalize the Los Angeles River.  On August 18, 2015, yours truly reported that Mr. Gehry had been quietly working, at the behest of the non-profit L.A. River Corporation, on a master plan the L.A. River.  Concerns were expressed over the secrecy of the project-no hint of the scope or even a napkin sketch was available.  Now, Christopher Hawthorne in his article for the Los Angeles Times, "Frank Gehry agreed to make over the L.A. River-with one big condition," offers some background about the architect's involvement, why it just might work, and some of the questions it raises.

Frank O. Gehry
renegadechicks.com

Christopher Hawthorne begins, "Frank Gehry and the Los Angeles River: It's a combination that makes zero sense (if you're looking strictly at Gehry's resume) and follows a natural logic (if you think about the interest the architect's work has long shown in L.A.'s linear infrastructure and its overlooked, harder-to-love corners)."  Well, yes.  Frank Gehry master planning the future of the L.A. River does not, at least on paper, make any logical sense whatsoever.  Yet, it appears to be a calculated move on the part of L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti to counter conventional wisdom that he is too cautious when it comes to making decisions about grand and/or controversial efforts to remake the city.  Frank Gehry has been quietly working on broad plan for the river for about a year.  His client, the L.A. River Revitalization Corp was founded in 2009 to coordinate river policy.

His firm, Gehry Partners have little experience in working on master plans, including an aborted attempt at redesigning the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, New York for developer Bruce Ratner.  The firm is, perhaps, better-

Frank Gehry model for Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn, New York
brooklynpaper.com

known for stand-alone buildings like the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Guggenheim Bilbao.  Mr. Gehry insists that his interest in the river is not as a site for a new landmark.  Rather, Mr. Hawthorne writes, "...he told the Revitalization Corp. board members who first visited his office last year that he would take on the job only if he look at the river primarily in terms of hydrology."  Hydrology?  Yours truly is curious if anyone at his firm has any background in hydrology.  Mr. Gehry told Mr. Hawthorne,

They came to see me and said they were heading up a committee for Mayor Garcetti and said we have this wonderful river, 51 miles, and that if we could brand it, give it visual coherence, it could become something special..."

The Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary
Central Park, New York City
en.wikipedia.org

Frank Gehry continues, I said, Oh you want me to be Olmsted, referring to Frederick Law Olmsted, one of Central Park's designers.  I told them I'm not a landscape guy.  I said I would only do it on the condition that they approached it as a water-reclamation project, to deal with all the water issues first. The river was encased in concrete by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just prior to World War II and has functioned as an infrastructural machine with one job: keep storm water runoff from flooding the city by diverting toward Long Beach and out to sea.

The thought of Frank Gehry designing the master plan for the L.A. River may not be as far fetched as it may sound.  Christopher Hawthorne writes, "The architect has also long been fascinated with Los Angeles as a city defined by huge, linear, public-works projects.  In that sense the river is a relative, an overlooked cousin, of Wilshire Boulevard (which Gehry has frequently called the city's true downtown) and L.A.'s freeways."  Mr. Gehry has been assembling a team of engineers and designers for meetings in his Santa Monica office.  The team members include Richard Roark, a partner in the Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm Olin and water-management expert Henk Ovink and consultants from Geosyntec engineering firm.  Two of Gehry Partners's younger partners, Tensho Takemori and Anand Devarajan represent the firm.

Los Angeles River after a storm
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The assemblage has developed a initial presentation with a pitch, "...that Gehry and Revitalization Corp. leader can give to elected officials and potential private funders."  The emphasis is on how illogical it is to prohibit the public from enjoying the river or its banks when the threat of flooding is low-i.e. most of the time.  Omar Brownson, the executive director of the Revitalization Corp refers to this project as the Gordian knot of L.A. River planning.  Indeed, the real challenge is allowing public access to the river-absolutely vital in a park poor city-without endangering flood control.  This raises the obvious question, "Why would City Hall want to hand over a project that is primarily hydrological to Frank Gehry, of all people?"  Yes, why would City Hall would hand over a mainly engineering project to the man responsible for some of the most sculptural architecture?

The L.A. River before the concrete
caltrout.org

The short answer comes from Gehry Partners's technological sophistication, which has become their calling card and offers the ability to quickly generate a digital map of the river to guide future planning endeavors.  The architecture firm is working with technology firm Trimble to produce a three-dimensional, point-cloud model for 70 percent of the river. According to Mr, Takemori,

The 3-D digital model, along with new high-definition photography, will give us an objective starting point for the river that everybody can work on.

The second part of the attraction equation has more to do with day-to-day City Hall politics.  Mr. Gehry, who has been doing pro bono research on the river so far, has the celebrity cache and dynamic personality to bring together political support and fund raising efforts.  This is particularly important because successfully pulling off this endeavor will require giving space to the dozens of cities and jurisdictions who have a say over the river.  Mr. Hawthorne writes, "Garcetti has faced criticism since he was a City Council member for his preternatural caution.  Here is a chance to swing for the fences."

Elysian Valley community of Frogtown
Los Angeles, California
eventbrite.com

One respect, the river is both a bothersome and contradictory opportunity.  Unlike some public-works projects that mayors love to sign their names to, the L.A. River revitalization process is not about building a new and grand infrastructure.  It is more about removal and exposure-the dismantling of physical, legal, and psychological barriers that have prevented public access.  Naturally, the neighborhoods near the river are anxious about the prospect of rising housing prices.  One neighborhood, Frogtown, is concerned that whatever plans the city and county settle, it will be accompanied by a rush of speculative land development.

Christopher Hawthorne writes, "The irony is that the original effort to wrap the river in concrete was executed in part to please big landowners and developers, to protect their property from seasonal flooding and keep the Southern California growth machine humming."  The news that the mayor is giving over the planning to Gehry Partners has already rankled longtime river advocates including Lewis McAdams, co-founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River.  FOLAR's skepticism is understandable because if the Gehry-led team helps build a new consensus about the river as a civic amenity, Mayor Garcetti's risk will have been worth it.  Further, if new attention on river planning results in a genuinely meaningful public conversation about water policy, drought, and climate change, so much the better.

Man walking his dog along the L.A. River
latimes.com

However, if this project becomes a mechanism for Gehry's firm to create a "...grand, signature infrastructure in the way it has sometimes turned out grand, signature buildings, or generates more photo ops than progress, it will undermine important work on the river that goes back decades."  Be that as it may, Mr. Gehry insists that his work will complement earlier and ongoing efforts, including the Alternate 20, "...a federal plan that calls for dramatically redesigning an 11-mile stretch of the river near downtown."

On at least one basic level, Frank Gehry's vision for the river will probably be a marked break from previous proposals.  Realistically, there is no practical way to remove all or most of the concrete, something that previous initiatives have touted through soft-focus Arcadian drawings.  In this respect, working with concrete is something Mr. Gehry is familiar.  Concrete is a wonderful material with many sculptural qualities.  Concrete has also produced an un-wonderful L.A. River landscape, "...which at certain points reaches a monumental scale, like a freeway without cars..."  Frank Gehry told Christopher Hawthorne, I don't see tearing out the concrete...It's an architectural feature, and I can see ways of incorporating it into what we're doing.