The Slatin Report on Frank Gehry

The Slatin Report, an e-real estate newsletter, has this article "GRAND GESTURE, SHORT SIGHTED?" about the possibility of Frank Gehry designing a building for the Grand Avenue revitalization efforts in Los Angeles. It's well-worth reading. Here are a couple nice quotes that sum up the problem of starchitecture and design that ignores context:

Rightly or wrongly, those models seemed to validate fears that Gehry was designing from the outside in, giving primacy to the sculptural shell rather than to the interior spaces, as dictated by Modernist doctrine...

Such virtuosity begins to ring hollow, because it solves no problems and addresses addresses no issues beyond its own composition and construction. Assessing a design problem requires an open mind, taking the largest possible view of both the immediate site and the urban-design implications for surrounding buildings and spaces. But Gehry can only design in one mode, and that is the starring role, belting out show stoppers at the top of his lungs. He is the Ethel Merman of architecture.