Hasta La Ideas

Please disregard what we’d mentioned in passing in a post Monday about Frank Gehry‘s upward luck trajectory following a rough patch there in 2008. Maybe we jinxed it, because shortly thereafter, news came down the pike that the architect’s gigantic, cloud-like Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation project in Paris has hit a wall with French courts, who issued an immediate stop work order. The Independent reports that although neighboring residents had been fighting to stop the building, by and large the French public were excited, after its commission way back in 2006, to have a new starchitect-made creation in their backyard. However, the residents finally convinced a judge, who said the building would block a public road, thus halting construction until either the matter is settled or the building doesn’t get built (at least in the currently-slated area). Outrage has been swift, from Paris’ mayor, who called the ruling absurd, to fellow starchitect Jean Nouvel who said he was “outraged by the selfishness, lack of civic pride and ignorance.” Gehry himself is reportedly quite miffed as well, telling the Telegraph that he’s “appalled, shocked and angry.” As the Independent continues, it seems perhaps this is some lingering hostility toward “the new” in architecture when it comes to Parisians, the same people who greatly disliked the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre‘s pyramid, and the Centre Pompidou. We can’t imagine that the project will go away completely, and this serving as anything more that just a hurdle along the way, but who knows? Stranger things have happened, we suppose.

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