Hasta La Ideas

The law may be fair and just, but golly if it don’t take forever. Remember back in 2007 when MIT decided to sue Frank Gehry for what they claimed was poor design work of his Stata Center, which had resulted in mold, cracks, and leaks at the building? As a quick refresher, Gehry claimed it was the builder, Beacon Skanska, who were responsible for all the problems. In turn, Beacon Skanska sued their contractor, NER Construction Management, claiming it was their fault. (We think we have that all right). Three years later, the suit has finally been settled for undisclosed sums/terms, but definitely with everything (hopefully at least) now fixed. Here’s the official, “everyone is friends again” statement MIT has released:

The Stata Center was designed by Frank Gehry as a space that champions collaborative research and discovery at MIT and embodies MIT’s intellectual adventurousness and creative spirit. “MIT is enormously proud of Frank’s design and our ongoing relationship with him,” said Professor Rodney Brooks of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a major occupant of the Stata Center. “The building has had a huge impact on campus life, fulfilling the many missions we brought to Frank at the outset of the design process. It provides highly functional and extraordinarily pleasant spaces for creative interaction.”

Mr. Gehry said, “I am pleased that we have come to a constructive resolution on this matter. I am gratified to see students and faculty using the building the way it was intended to be used. This is the most important thing to me — that the building works for those who use it on a daily basis.”

Given how long that all took, we’d expect Gehry’s other leak problem in Ontario will be settling up around 2014.

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