Starchitect Saga

It was a disaster. At the very least, it was turning into a highly embarrassing professional failure. By the late 1990s, close to a decade after Frank Gehry had been given the commission to build the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the project that would transform the downtown core of the city and become one of the new century’s most iconic constructions was in serious trouble. The budget had ballooned out of proportion. The relationship between Gehry and another firm involved had disintegrated. Dissonance among the county and city governments, the Disney family, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a bevy of critics persisted. The project had gone completely off the rails.

Ironically, what helped break the imbroglio was another Gehry project, which was becoming one of his most celebrated achievements: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It opened in 1997, on schedule and slightly under budget, to nearly universal acclaim. Its impact on the community was...