Architect vs. Engineer: No Holds Barred

If they're so smart at M.I.T. they would have done a bit of research about Frank Gehry. Sure he's a star in the architectural firmament. Sure he's done some large projects that generate buzz and sightseers. Sure he doesn't know how to put up what he's drawn on paper.

The Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago's Millennium Park ran over budget -- beyond what was paid out to friends and those who know the right people, the usual graft of the city. Well over one million dollars was spent by structural engineers at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, trying to figure out how to make steel curve and arch like an exploded tin can, while at the same time putting up a functional music pavilion. Techniques had to be tried and then others tried when the first attempts failed in a series of experiments that cost plenty. In the end, the bandstand worked, but the curving bridge across the park proved to be useless in the winter, when the weight of snow and pedestrians would have caused it to collapse.

The Stata Center, an image from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, has its problems. Leaks, cracks, poor drainage, that sort of thing, and now the engineers are taking the architect to court. A bit of negligence here, a touch of contract breaching there; the three-year-old building is an engineer's nightmare.

Skanska USA, which built the center, has pointed the finger of blame at the architect. The engineers wanted to change the design of an amphitheatre that is now falling to pieces, but the architect wasn't having any of it. Mr. Gehry is not taking the blame, instead shunting the problems onto M.I.T.'s shoulders. It's the client's fault, he's implying, because they cut corners and created the very problems that are named in the lawsuit.

What sort of problems? Things like snow (which Mr. Gehry does not have to deal with in Los Angeles) and ice falling off the building and blocking the emergency exits. M.I.T. had to pay out another $1.5 million to fix that and the cracking amphitheatre, but having spent $300 million on the structure, they'd like to not spend more to fix what never should have gone wrong.

With all the engineers on campus, at one of the best engineering schools in the world, you'd think that one or two of the professors might have taken a glance at the blueprints, and maybe spoken to some structural engineers in Chicago about translating a Gehry design into functional reality.