Each month seems to bring news of another Frank Gehry project: the Nets arena, a theater, and now rumors of a new Guggenheim. But before one gets seduced—or, as with some Brooklynites, enraged—by renderings in the papers, it’s worth recalling that many of the architect’s past New York designs haven’t been realized. A tally of the major ones.
THE BUILT:
Condé Nast cafeteria, 4 Times Square. Completed: 2000. Cost: $30 million. A titanium-walled canteen.
Issey Miyake store, Tribeca. Completed: 2001. Cost: Undisclosed. Includes a rippling titanium sculpture.
THE PENDING:
Brooklyn Nets arena. Expected cost: $500 million. An opportunity “to build a neighborhood from scratch,” said Gehry.
Theatre for a New Audience, Fort Greene. Expected cost: $22 million. A 299-seater across from BAM.
InterActiveCorp Headquarters, Chelsea. Expected cost: $138 million. An Ikea-storage-cabinet of a tower for Barry Diller’s Web companies.
THE NEVER REALIZED:
Guggenheim Museum, financial district. Included a glass underbelly over the East River. Canceled in 2002. There’s now talk of a Guggenheim on the West Side, but a spokesman says, “It’s way too premature to speculate on that”—or on Gehry’s involvement in it.
New York Times HQ, midtown. A twisting high-rise with the Times’ logo on the side. Gehry withdrew from the 2000 competition, which was won by Renzo Piano.
Astor Place Hotel. A tower for Ian Schrager resembling a statue draped in a sheet. Planned in 2000, then dropped.
Lincoln Center renovation. Included a huge glass canopy over the plaza. Commissioned in 2001 but scrapped by Lincoln Center in 2002; Diller Scofidio + Renfro just unveiled their plans.
One Times Square. Gehry proposed swathing the ball-drop tower in fabric and projecting cartoon characters on its side. Commissioned by Warner Bros. in 1996. But then the company stopped returning his calls.