Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiPhi
And Pelli, whether he deserves it or not (I don't think he does - he simply refines and betters the projects of others and then churns them out worldwide) gets a lot of attention from the architectural and cultural establishments worldwide. He has projects underway in some of the fastest growing and biggest cities. He doesn't have nearly as much name recognition in the general public as Gehry, but the Pritzker Pavilion got a lot of attention because it was Frank Gehry. It will boost the city image.
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Pelli gets attention from "cultural establishments" that are too afraid to take risks. His firm's work is respectable, but that's about all you can say.
Safe designs do nothing to "boost a city's image," unless that city's architecture is shit. Clearly, this is not a problem suffered by Chicago. It had been at the vanguard of Modernism for decades, and, with the rise of young luminaries like Jeanne Gang, is poised to retake that position. By contrast, a couple Pelli towers will, at best, solidify Chicago's "prettiness" without doing much else. At worse, they'll be viewed as a missed opportunity for such a prominent location. It'd be like the Columbia Exposition or the Tribune Tower: aesthetically pleasing, but remembered mostly for what wasn't built.