Hasta La Ideas

We didn’t want to bore you with another never-ending series of “will he leave or won’t he?” posts surrounding Frank Gehry and the Miami Beach New World Symphony Park project. Everyone who has followed the story of Gehry getting upset at the budget and threatening to walk has known that the starchitect wasn’t going to be working on this since back in April. But now we can report, and wash our hands with it, that the Miami Beach Commission has officially voted to remove Gehry and instead have the Dutch firm West 8 come in to replace him, starting as soon as the first of August. If you were unfamiliar with the project, the long and short of it can be boiled down to the city not wanting to pay Gehry’s millions of dollars in consulting fees and miscellaneous personal expenses (near $2 million) and so he decided to scram. Fortunately, the starchitect has decided to be a stand-up guy about the whole thing and has promised “to be involved with the park project and review the final park design plans for free.” Also, lest we forget, it probably helps that he’s building the actual symphony building, too.